To celebrate National Night Out, the Sweet Home Police Department will host a Sweet Home block party Tuesday, Aug. 5, at Sankey Park.
“From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., residents in neighborhoods throughout Sweet Home and across the nation are asked to lock their doors, grab a lawn chair, turn on outside lights and spend the evening outside with neighbors,” said Sweet Home Community Services Officer Gina Riley. “We will be doing so at Sankey Park.”
The first 100 people who show up will be served free hot dogs and drinks.
All Sweet Home citizens, neighborhoods, apartment complexes, town homes, businesses and stores are invited and encouraged to participate, Riley said. “We will be hosting a block party for our city because it is a simple way for people to meet, have fun and explore how they might work together to improve safety and quality of their neighborhoods.”
The event is part of the nationwide National Night Out, which is designed to strengthen relationships in neighborhoods, raise crime prevention awareness and continue relationships with public safety, including police, fire and volunteers, Riley said.
The community-wide event is a first this year. In the past, individual Neighborhood Watch groups held individual National Nite Out events, and the Mimosa Circle Neighborhood Watch will host its own block party independently.
“We wanted to see if we could get all the Neighborhood Watch groups to come together in a central location,” Riley said. “Lebanon Police Department started this a few years back, and it has been a huge success for them. We thought we would give it a try on a smaller scale to start with.”
For more information, contact Riley at (541) 367-5181.