National Night Out seen as way to ‘unify the community’
August 2, 2017 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
A record number of National Night Out events were held Tuesday in Aurora, with 45 groups staging events throughout the city.
“We had 34 neighborhoods participate a year ago, and this year that number has climbed to 45,” said City of Aurora Community Coordinator Cheryl Maraffio. “From what we’ve seen, our local communities have a passion for where they live, and this is about bonding with your neighbors, police, aldermen and city officials. There is a real fire in the belly of our neighborhoods and while all of our neighborhoods are great, none of them is perfect.”
National Night Out began 34 years ago and is currently celebrated by more than 16,000 communities throughout the U.S., city officials said. The event is designed to let neighbors spend some time with each other and to think about the importance of crime prevention.
Aurora’s neighborhood events were scheduled to draw numbers ranging from just 40 people to as many as 500, Maraffio said. Some elected to kick up their programs this year by adding attractions like a live animal exhibit or having a community potluck dinner.
One of the heavily attended sites was the Copley Boxing and Training Center at 517 N. Union St. Yorkville resident Jessica Diaz, who works as a board member at the center, said Tuesday’s event “was a great way to unify the community.”
“We want people to work in cooperation with the police and have a community where kids can play and feel safe,” Diaz said. “We’re excited about the program here and have added a few things including a photo booth and dunk tank.”
Kids lined up immediately after the site on Union Street opened and rushed the dunk tank. Aurora resident Alma Zambrano declared Tuesday’s event “perfect for families” and said she knew kids would enjoy it.
“I have children as well and this is something they have been looking forward to,” Zambrano said. “Kids develop other friends from things like this and the families that they see.”
The Fox Valley Park District had representatives at seven sites Tuesday including the one at the training center. Director of Marketing Dan Leahy said the Park District “was offering a profile at the sites” and stressed that Aurora “was a community made up of neighborhoods.”
“We want to stress the importance of recreation and feel that having people know about it makes for stronger programs,” he said.
Fox Valley Park District Chief of Police David Summer spoke about the importance of the connection between law officials and the community.
“An event like this contributes to public safety and helps unify the neighborhoods,” Summer said. “It takes an entire community to raise a child. Each year, the groups of people participating in this get bigger. I’m not saying we have been out there taking back the neighborhoods, but more and more people feel like this is home.”
The Aurora Police Department’s Special Response Team was represented at the event by a number of individuals including Officer Nate Issak, who said he has been a member of the Aurora Police Department for 10 years.
“We’re like the local SWAT team and I feel like coming to events like this humanizes things a lot as people get to put a name with a face,” Issak said. “There is a time to be a policeman and a time to have fun with the kids and just be ourselves. I feel Aurora has changed a lot during the past decade and people are opening up more and standing up for their community.”
That progress towards a better community was echoed by Mayor Richard Irvin, who said he would be out visiting many sites Tuesday.
“National Night Out is all about community and this is the epitome of that as people celebrate being Aurorans,” Irvin said. “This is something we’ve been working on over the past decade as Aurora was once regarded as a dangerous place and we need to continue to work together to make sure things don’t go back that way and that we continue to improve and progress as a community.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
