National Night Out: ‘Building a sense of community’
Published 12:10 am Thursday, October 3, 2024
Jaceon and Dayah Crudup listen as Fire Chief Jason Smith conducts a tour in the new fire safety house. – Karen Kistler
Alexander Sanchez gets ready to dunk Police Chief Matthew Geelen. – Karen Kistler
Jacob Geraldo tries on a bicycle helmet which was being given away by the Landis Police Department. – Karen Kistler
Landis Firefighters visit during National Night Out near the large American flag. — Karen Kistler
Jeff Harrison, left, and Mike Carothers with Blue Line Brotherhood, prepare boxes of popcorn for attendees. – Karen Kistler
National Night Out attendees were treated to free food by Woodmen Life during the event. — Karen Kistler
From left, State Troopers Raper, Gomez-Mendez and Freeze stand between a current car and a 1947 Buick trooper car which they brought to display. — Karen Kistler
Landis Police officers give out free bicycle helmets. — Karen Kistler
Laken Gilbert peeks out one of the windows in the new fire safety house. – Karen Kistler
Mayor Meredith Smith sang the National Anthem to kick off the 4th annual National Night Out in Landis. — Karen Kistler
DJ Kyle Glady provided music during the evening. — Karen Kistler
Parade photo by Wayne Hinshaw for the Salisbury Post
Spencer Officer Devin Safrit brought his five-month old daughter Hattie to her first National Night Out Tuesday. Photo by Elisabeth Strillacci
Macy Motlow, 10, left, and her brother, Rush, 8, enjoyed coloring at Spencer's National Night Out Tuesday. Their mom, Amanda, said the family stumbled on the event as they came out of piano lessons. Photo by Elisabeth Strillacci
Ted Carmen of the Spencer Moose Lodge takes fingerprints of a young man to help create a Child ID that parents can have on hand, just in case. Carmen brought the free progam to National Night Out. Photo by Elisabeth Strillacci
Members of the Spencer police department are joined by the Terrie Hess Child Advocacy Center's therapy dog, Murphy, at Tuesday's National Night Out event in front of city hall. Photo by Elisabeth Strillacci
Kannapolis Police Chief Terry Spry, far right, joins members of his department in handing out backpacks with school supplies to young students who attended Tuesday's National Night Out. Submitted photo
All ages showed up for Landis’ fourth annual National Night Out, which provided an opportunity for police officers and firefighters to connect with the community.
Originally scheduled for Aug. 6, the event was postponed due to rain and was held Oct. 1 from 6-9 p.m. on the South Rowan YMCA fields on Kimball Road.
The evening kicked off with Mayor Meredith Smith singing the national anthem under a giant American flag placed in the middle of the field. After she sang, DJ Kyle Glady with Vicarious Entertainment in Kannapolis began playing music and encouraged everyone to enjoy the evening.
Smith said this was the fourth year they have had National Night Out at the YMCA fields, noting that it’s a big area and people are familiar with the location and “so we are super excited to always partner with them.”
She said people could walk around and eat, watch the kids, as she pointed out the various groups that were there to help with the event, including the first responders, police and fire, the state troopers, WoodmenLife, the Brook Church and their ice cream truck, Troop 328 from Ebenezer Lutheran Church, the Blue Line Brotherhood, the library and multiple bounce houses.
“We enjoy doing this every year for the town,” she said. ”It’s an honor to see our first responders out here,” along with all the others.
Landis Police Chief Matthew Geelen was first to take a turn in the dunk tank, which he said he felt was important for him to do.
“I feel like it’s important to lead by example,” he said. “So if I want other officers in it, I need to do it first.”
Fire Chief Jason Smith and Assistant Police Chief Kevin Young were among others that took a turn in the tank, which ended up being a popular area.
Alexander Sanchez was one of many that threw a ball and sent Geelan into the water, and he said that he had fun doing this.
And, Mayor Smith said, as she watched on, that her 10-year-old daughter was “working on dunking the police chief as many times as she possibly can.”
On the other end of the field, children were taking tours of the fire department’s new inflatable house, which they just received and were debuting during National Night Out, said Fire Chief Smith.
“This is our new fire safety house. It was generously donated by a foundation, which wished to remain nameless,” he said. “It’s kind of a new concept, not the kind on wheels. This is an interactive safety house. It’s a new teaching tool.”
He conducted tours and explained safety issues throughout the house and asked children various safety questions, such as do you play with matches in the house to which Jaceon and Dayah Crudup shouted out “no!”
Smith said they plan to take the house around and teach children about safety as Fire Prevention Week is approaching.
Both Chief Smith and Captain Todd Bittle stressed the importance of teaching young children as Smith said, “starting with our youth is absolutely necessary. These kids learn fast, and we can imprint things like ‘go low and go,’ or ‘exit drills’ which they pick up and hopefully they can go home and talk about,” he said.
Bittle said they “always strive for kids and you’ve got to start young because if you don’t you’ve lost it.”
The entire evening centered around connecting with the community and teaching and supporting one another.
“This is a great way for our fire department, our public safety to connect with community,” said Geelen. “It’s all about early intervention and making sure children and adults alike aren’t scared to approach us when we’re out in public.”
He noted that this event helps so that the only interaction people have with “law enforcement isn’t just negative when we’re responding to an incident or seeing us in a crisis moment,” Geelen said.
Michael Ambrose, Landis’ town manager, said that National Night Out was “one of our great events for our police department,” that helps them “connect with the community and have them come out here and intermingle with the folks, learn them and make sure they know who they are.”
He added that it’s also a very important time for their “younger officers to get familiar with their community” as some are recruited from other locations, so it’s a great opportunity for them to “know their community in a different kind of light other than the day to day situations.”
And the community came out to see what was going on.
Katherynne Sanchez, who lived nearby, said she didn’t know about the event, but saw the people and decided to attend and bring her children.
“It’s really fun for the kids,” she said, “all the people all together.”
The Gilbert family also all came out together to enjoy the evening and as Gail Gilbert said, “to enjoy the event and just get out and have a good time” and pointing to Laken, the youngest in the family, she said, “it’s about him.”
He was there with his mom Carey Gilbert and others in the family, which included Gail, Brenda and Larry Gilbert.
On hand for the event were members of Blue Line Brothers. As they handed out popcorn, Jeff Harrison and Mike Carothers, who are retired police officers from Kannapolis, said supporting the police is what they do and so they came to support the police department.
Scattered over the field, bounce houses attracted children to come jump or slide or throw an inflatable ax or see the police cars, among them a 1947 Buick Trooper car.
Troopers Freeze, Raper and Gomez-Mendez were there to speak to any who came by to see the cars.
Freeze noted that Chief Geelen had invited them and wanted them to bring the old car to the event.
Next to the cars, officers from Landis Police Department were giving out free bicycle helmets to children who needed one. Many dropped by to take this opportunity to get one, and parents helped them make sure they got the right size.
Several from the library were there sharing information about upcoming events.
Paul Birkhead, reference librarian, said they felt it was important to be there because, “this is our community, you turn around and see the library building right there. So we’re just glad to be a part of it.”
And as with most events, there was food and that was the case for this National Night Out as The Brook Church had an ice cream truck, and Woodmen Life was giving free hot dogs, chips, cookies and drinks.
Micaela Koffler with Woodmen Life said they were once again partnering with the Landis Police Department, which they have done since it started, and were providing free food for those attending.
Koffler said Woodmen Life is “a not for profit organization that sells life insurance and annuities, but our big thing is as a not for profit organization we give back to the community. One of the ways we do that is we do National Night Out every year.”
This annual event is truly one that focuses on community, as Glady said, it’s “building a sense of community where the police department can interact with the people to foster cooperation.”
Kannapolis and Spencer also celebrate on postponed date
National Night Out, originally scheduled in August for Kannapolis and Spencer, was also pushed back to Oct. 1 due to inclement weather, but they both went off Tuesday night without a hitch.
In Kannapolis, the event was held at Veterans Park on Main Street and both police and fire departments participated along with community partners and non-profits. The police department gave out backpacks with school supplies and the event offered activities with prizes specifically for senior citizens. There was free food and live music from 5-7 p.m.
The event was not as large as in years past because of the need for a delay, and in both towns, it was noted that the start of school and sporting events might have dampened participation slightly, but the cooler weather made it all the more pleasant for those attending.
In Spencer, the city kicked off the event at 5:30 p.m. with a groundbreaking for the new town park, with construction beginning Wednesday.
After the shovels were laid down, more than 300 visitors enjoyed hot dogs, music, giveaways and chances to interact with members of the Spencer police and fire departments.
Lexi Collins, who just came aboard Spencer’s fire department full time after volunteering in her hometown of Faith, said she loves the community support in Spencer, and the fact that her chief, Michael Lanning, “is one of the most community-involved chiefs I have ever known.”
She said she enjoys the chance to meet people during events like National Night Out, and said one of her favorite moments was when she was working at an event at the Transportation Museum “and a little girl walked up to me and said she wanted to be just like me,” and that made her feel incredible, she said.
She appreciates that events like NNO seem to make people more willing to walk up and chat with her.
John Howard with the Spencer police department said that’s the point.
“This is about getting people to know we are here to help, and we’re not just here to put people in jail,” said Howard. “Sometimes, we go on a call and someone needs different help, maybe it’s social services, maybe it’s just we need to contact family, and we can and will do that.”
Police Chief Michael File said the turnout was not as high as it was last year, but he valued the positive interaction.
Amanda Motlow, who said she hadn’t been aware of the event but when she picked up her children after piano lessons across from city hall, she saw the event and decided to check it out.
“What a great event,” said Motlow. “If I’d known I might have planned to come but it was perfect to walk out and find it here.”
Erin Moody, who works at the Terrie Hess Child Advocacy Center, who teaches fifth graders in North Rowan about how to handle child abuse, and who is a member of Spencer’s board of aldermen, said she thought the night was “perfect.”
“It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality, and we’ve had a lot of terrific engagement tonight,” Moody said as she handed out several items to visitors to the Terrie Hess booth, including color changing rulers, bracelets and packages of bandages.
In addition to the booth hosted by police and Terrie Hess, Ted Carmen of the Spencer Moose Lodge was on hand creating child IDs using an Easy ID computer.
“We ask the same questions police ask, take photos and fingerprints, and put it all on a zip drive that we then give to the parents,” said Carmen. “Then, if anything happens, the parents can tell the police what the child was wearing, and give them the zip drive, and police can immediately upload it to an Amber Alert.”
National Night Out was first held in August of 1984, and it was initially put together by an existing network of organizations, including law enforcement, neighborhood watch groups, state and regional crime prevention associations, civic organizations and grassroots volunteers.
