Twelve lucky kids received bicycles at the Morro Bay Police Department’s Annual National Night Out event.
Photos by Dean Sullivan
The Morro Bay Police Department held its Annual National Night Out event on Aug. 4 bringing police officers, fire fighters and other organizations together at Cloisters Park for a fun evening of community building.
MBPD Chief, Amy Watkins told Estero Bay News that the department has been holding NNO events for over 10 years now.
“The purpose,” she said, “is to bring the community and law enforcement together for engagement and fun exchanges.”
The event features games for the kids to play, free food and emergency information, plus a lot of swag from various organizations and business sponsors. It’s all designed to bring police officers closer to the people they serve.
“Safe communities,” Chief Watkins said, “begin and end with a cooperative partnership and solid relationships between the police and the communities they protect. This event provides an opportunity to come together, enjoy some food and get to know each other in a neighborhood/community atmosphere.”
NNO events are held the first Tuesday of August and now take place in some 17,000 communities nationwide, and 38 million people take part in the events annually.
The idea started forming in 1970 with a community volunteer named Matt Peskin in a West Philadelphia suburb.
According to the NNO website (see: https://natw.org), “Matt spent several years volunteering for the Lower Merion (Penn.) Community Watch program, who works in cooperation with the Lower Merion Police Department.
“During his tenure of volunteer work in the township, he often patrolled his neighborhood, assisted in patrol dispatch and shortly thereafter introduced the program’s newsletter becoming a representation of the success that took place within the organization and the volunteer work put forth by over 1,000 neighbors.”
Finding it increasingly hard to gather relevant information for the newsletter he was putting together, Peskin started reaching out to neighboring communities, according to the Website said.
“This was the aha! moment,” the website said, “Matt noticed hundreds of these local groups existed with no shared platform to connect.”
In 1981, he formed the National Association of Town Watch (NATW), “to provide community watch groups the necessary information, resources and assets to stay informed, interested, involved, and motivated within the community.
“Neighbors and local law enforcement across the nation supported the association as it steadily grew for the next 3 years.” Peskin now serves as the NATW’s executive director.
NATW soon introduced the National Night Out. “National Night Out,” the website said, “was introduced in August of 1984 through an already established network of law enforcement agencies, neighborhood watch groups, civic groups, state and regional crime prevention associations and volunteers across the nation. The first annual National Night Out involved 2.5 million neighbors across 400 communities in 23 states.”
NNO has grown much bigger than the initial goal of sharing information and building camaraderie among neighbors.
“Neighborhoods across the nation began to host block parties, festivals, parades, cookouts and various other community events with safety demonstrations, seminars, youth events, visits from emergency personnel, exhibits and more.”
Police departments in Atascadero and San Luis Obispo also held NNO events this year. Morro Bay’s event had a lot of support from the business community.
Chief Watkins wanted to thank their Major Sponsors — La Katrina Morro Bay, So Cal Gas, Hall’s Culligan, Spencer’s Fresh Market, Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling, Came Security, Costco SLO. Columbia Bank, and The Estero Bay News.
She also thanked “Organizations who joined us with a booth at the event: City of Morro Bay Services, Morro Bay Police Department, Morro Bay Fire Department, Morro Bay Recreation Division, and the Morro Bay Harbor Department.”
And several service clubs and other organizations also helped out. They were: Morro Bay in Bloom, Morro Bay Lions Club, Columbia Bank, Costco, Estero Radio Club, SLO CERT, Shoreline Calvary Church, The Newcomers Club, 805 Fearless, Coastal Cravings Shave Ice, Premium Meat Market, and So Cal Gas.
