By Megan Alley and Kelly Cantwell
Sun staff
Communities across Clermont County gathered on Aug. 2 or in the days following to celebrate National Night Out, or an event in lieu of the national event.
National Night Out began in 1984 with funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the U.S. Department of Justice. The event aims to boost police-community relationships and is held on the first Tuesday in August each year. More than 16,000 communities participate, according to the website.
This year’s village of New Richmond’s National Night Out event, held Aug. 2 on Front Street, attracted a modest crowd.
“It’s going fine,” Police Chief Randy Harvey said. “Naturally, it takes a considerable amount of time to kind of pull all this together, and we would like to have more people present than what I’m seeing here this evening.”
Harvey, who’s participated in the event four times during the past six years, noted that 2014’s event drew a much bigger audience.
He went on to explain the importance of the event.
“It’s the one opportunity where we’re able to get out of the cars and meet-and-greet people and talk to them on a one-on-one basis,” he said.
He further explained that, “For a small department like ours, we typically have one guy on a shift, and they’re really quite busy answering calls, taking reports and doing follow-ups, so it’s not that we want to be unsociable, it’s just that business takes priority; this event gives us an opportunity, a break, to get away from that and just meet-and-greet people and let them see our personalities and form better relations with the community.”
While some departments use the event as an opportunity to showcase new equipment, the NRPD didn’t have any new tools on display.
“I really don’t have equipment to showcase and show people; I’m bare bones,” Harvey explained. “I don’t have the fancy gadgets like a lot of bigger departments have.”
Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department Chief Vince Bee shared Harvey’s sentiments about the event’s turnout.
“It’s been good,” he said, adding, “We’d love to always see more people from the community come out and participate and see us, and see the equipment.”
He noted, “It’s their equipment; they’re the taxpayers, and we just want to be able to share that time with them and get them to know the folks who are out serving them in the community.”
Bee expounded on the importance of the event in a “smaller community” like New Richmond.
“We want to make sure that the public knows that we are always here for them and to take care of any of their needs,” he said. “They should never hesitate to call for us if they need to.”
The event also provides an opportunity for fire and EMS staff to share with the public the many “unconventional” ways they help throughout the community.
“We change the traffic lights out on [state Route] 52,” Bee said. “You don’t see many other fire departments do things like that.”
He added, “There are a lot of things that the fire department does behind the scenes that I don’t think people realize we do.”
The department is currently working with the Red Cross to procure and distribute free smoke detectors.
“A lot of people don’t realize that we’ll install them,” Bee added. “It’s not like we just knock on the door and hand it to people; we’ll put it up for them.”
New Richmond resident Alice Johnson attended the event, for the first time, with her daughter Mary Johnson, age 9.
Alice Johnson, who is a recovering heroin addict with 11 months of sobriety, was serving as a representative for Safe Harbor of Hope, a residential support program for women that promotes sober living.
“It’s a good program,” she said. “I just came out to try to reach out to people of the community; hopefully help somebody.”
Mary Johnson, whose favorite part of the evening was seeing the fire truck ladders, got the opportunity to talk to a few safety services officers.
“It was cool,” she said.
Holly Hopper, of New Richmond, attended the event, also for the first time, with her son Carter Clevenger, age 3.
“I’m here to support my hometown,” she said.
Seth Justice, age 10, of New Richmond, attended the event with his family.
“It’s pretty fun, and there’s a lot of stuff to do,” he said, adding, “I had fun spraying my friends with the water hose.”
This was also the first year that Seth Justice had attended the event. He said it was “neat” that safety services officers were available to talk to and that he would attend the event again next year.
His mother, Alicia Justice, said that the event is important because it gives the kids a chance to meet the firefighters and emergency medical services officers.
“It gives them an idea about what [the officers] do,” she explained, adding, “It also gives the kids an opportunity to think about what they want to be when they grow up.”
Goshen Township’s sixth year hosting National Night Out, which was held behind Marr/Cook Elementary, was the best yet, said Police Chief Bob Rose.
“This was by and large the most successful National Night Out that we’ve ever had,” he said.
The event saw thousands of visitors and more vendors than previous years. As far as Rose could tell, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.
Officer Kristen Groves and Firefighter/paramedic Cody Martin coordinated the event for the first time, putting lots of time and energy into it, Rose said.
“She really owned it. She really took the lead on it,” he said of Groves.
Prior to this year, Groves had only attended one National Night Out event. She hopes to work on the event next year too.
“I think it went fantastic. I really do look forward to seeing how great we can make it next year,” Groves said.
To publicize, Groves made a Facebook page, in addition to passing out fliers. The Facebook page seemed to be very popular, she said.
The main goal of the event is to bring the township together so they can see the police and fire departments and their staff.
“It was an amazing event,” Rose said.
He was also touched by support from the community, especially resident Amanda Berry, who made a sign expressing support for the department and who collected gift cards for the police officers.
“That was very touching,” Rose said.
He added, “We love our community, that’s for sure.”
Sammy Ziegler brought her nephew Carter Rains to the event to celebrate his last day as a 4-year-old. Ziegler hasn’t been to the event since she graduated, so she wanted to come see it again. Rains really enjoyed seeing the fire trucks.
Shiloh and Karli McQueary attended with their children, Kennadi and Mason. The family has participated in the event before, and Karli McQueary thought they would enjoy it again.
“My son loves the fire trucks,” she said.
The event included police and fire vehicles, an air care helicopter, inflatable obstacle courses, food vendors, a classic car show and more.