Community

National Night Out in Brief

October 04 2022

National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie.

National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live. National Night Out enhances the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community. Furthermore, it provides a great opportunity to bring police and neighbors together under positive circumstances.

Millions of neighbors take part in National Night Out across thousands of communities from all fifty states, U.S. territories and military bases worldwide on the first Tuesday in August (Texas and select areas celebrate on the first Tuesday in October). Neighborhoods host block parties, festivals, parades, cookouts and various other community events with safety demonstrations, seminars, youth events, visits from emergency personnel, exhibits and much, much more.

1970

Meet Matt. The period before National Night Out.

It begins in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Matt spent several years volunteering for the Lower Merion 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 one thousand neighbors.

Opportunity to gather new valuable content for the newsletter became more difficult as each month passed. Matt started to reach out to surrounding communities for assistance. This was the aha moment. Matt noticed hundreds of these local groups existed with no shared platform to connect.

1981

Matt established the National Association of Town Watch.

National Association of Town Watch was founded only a few years later 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 three years.

1984

NATW introduced the National Night Out campaign.

Matt knew something more was needed. National Night Out 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.

National Night Out grew to become a celebration beyond just front porch vigils and symbolic efforts amongst neighbors to send a message of neighborhood camaraderie. 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.

To learn more about National Night Out, visit natw.org.

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