BY TERESA ACKERMAN
Gazette Newspapers
PAINESVILLE – Painesville City Police hosted the National Night Out in Painesville Veteran’s Park on Tuesday, Aug. 4.
The weather was perfect. There were food trucks. The crowd was entertained by the band Drummer Says No.
National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign held on the first Tuesday of August to promote police-community partnerships and neighborhood safety. This was started in August 1984 by Matt Peskin who founded the National Association of Town Watch.
“This is a national event. It originally started out here with radios being given to a handful of members of the community who wanted to go up and down the streets, many years ago. They would report things that they saw. This was in conjunction with National Night Out,” said Painesville Police Chief Daniel Waterman. “Then we started this event. We got huge feedback. We received so many donations for this event. We have been able to give bikes (135 this year) and toys donated to the kids by CSX. This has turned out to be something very special. Each family is given a ticket, and they put it in the basket of the bike that they want.”
Police officers from all over Lake County were present at this event, as well as vendors from different Lake County Agencies.
This event gave members of the community an opportunity to meet police officers not only from Painesville City, but from surrounding communities as well.
Well over a hundred people attended this event.
