Backing the Blue: National Night Out coming to county

You don’t have to come out with your hands up to have a lot of fun across Cherokee County next week.

Jacksonville, Rusk and Bullard police departments are holding their annual National Night Out events, Tuesday, Oct. 1.

According to the National Association of Town Watch’s website, natw.org, NNO is “an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make all 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.”

Any civic organization, business or individual who would like to donate to their local NNO events can con-tact their local police department.

“In essence, this is the biggest community event of the year for the police department,” Rusk PD Chief Joe Wil-liams said. “That being said, we want to do it right. This is not a budgeted item, so any donations that we re-ceive go directly to NNO activities. In the event we take in more than we spend, we’ll save those monies and use them on next year’s event. Any help is appreciat-ed.”

RPD’s event kicks off at 6 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 1, on the square in downtown Rusk.

“The Rusk Police Department takes seriously its com-mitment to providing professional police services to their community,” Williams said. “Our citizens and business community are our customers and we want to show our appreciation during our NNO event.”

This year’s festivities include a free burger and hotdog supper; live entertainment; bounce houses; a dunking booth; information booths; face-painting and more.

The Rusk Police Department held its very first NNO event in 2017 and won the NATW’s Rookie of the Year award.

The Jacksonville Police Department will be on hand at two NNO events in Jacksonville this year.

Jacksonville’s NNO events will be from 5:30-9 p.m., at the Sweet Union Baptist Church, 302 N. Main St., Jack-sonville; and from 6-9p.m. at Father’s Love ministry, 402 S. Bolton St., Jacksonville.

Featured attractions at Jacksonville’s NNO events in-clude cook-outs, a petting zoo, bounce houses, a bas-ketball skills challenge and more.

This year marks Bullard PD’s second annual NNO event, which will be held 6-8 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 1, at the Bullard Children’s Park in downtown Bullard. The city’s fire department and other local responders will be on hand to meet and greet their community. Participants can enjoy free burgers and hotdogs, provided by Whataburger. Raffles, games, a cornhole tournament starting at 7 p.m. and more will be featured.

Sponsors include DKT Investments-Whataburger; Texas National Bank-Bullard; and Bluebonnet Point Wellness.

This year marks the 36th anniversary of National Night Out. NATW’s founder and executive director Matt Peskin introduced the program in 1984, which stemmed from volunteer work he’d done seven years prior with the Lower Marion Police Department in Philadelphia, Penn.

“National Association of Town Watch was founded only a few years later to provide community watch groups the necessary resources and assets to stay informed, interested, involved, and motivated within the com-munity,” NATW’s website explains. “Neighbors and lo-cal law enforcement across the nation supported the association as it steadily grew for the next three years. However, Peskin knew something more was needed.”

The first ever NNO event saw 2.5 million citizens in 400 communities across 23 states participate – now an es-timated 38 million residents in more than 16,000 com-munities in all 50 states, U.S. territories and military bases worldwide observed National Night Out.