National Night Out
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
National Night Out is a community-police partnership held the first Tuesday of every August since 1984 sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch in the United States and Canada. It aims to increase awareness about police programs in communities, such as drug prevention, town watch, and other anti-crime efforts. Initially communities held lights-on vigils. Now, many communities hold block parties, festivals, and other events to help bring neighbors together.
National Night Out was developed by Matt Peskin of the National Association of Town Watch in 1984. That year there were 2.5 million participants in 400 communities, in 2004 there were over 34 million partipants in 10,500 communities.