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Night Out Against Crime Idea Guide
9 Ideas to Keep Your Community Safe with Night Out Against Crime
Night Out Against Crime is an important safety event typically held in August. This annual event promotes police-community partnerships and camaraderie amongst neighbors in an effort to make all neighborhoods safer and better places to live. Night Out Against Crime is a great time to encourage everyone in your community to work together to make the community safer. Use affordable educational and promotional products, coupled with fun activities, to spread the message of safety and boost recognition of your organization.
Looking Good
Making your community safer isn’t the only way to improve it. Incorporate other positive community-related activities into your Night Out Against Crime observances. Here are some suggestions:
- Hold a neighborhood cleanup early in the evening before it gets dark. Give participants trash bags and gloves. Arrange with your municipality’s garbage removal service to pick up the trash bags when they’re full. Thank participants by giving them a reusable goody bag that they can use while shopping. It will help cut down on the amount of plastic bags used and trash produced.
- Seek donations of paint from a local hardware store and use it to cover up graffiti. To make the newly painted areas more colorful, have art students from a local high school cover the graffiti with murals.
- Collect canned and non-perishable food items for a food drive benefitting
a local food pantry. Reward community members who donate items with home
safety-related magnets
or pocket pals.
Food for Thought
Nothing brings people together like food. With that in mind, have food-related activities as part of your Night Out Against Crime. Here are a few ideas:
- Ask every household to bring two dozen cookies for a cookie exchange, along with the recipes. Encourage families to swap cookies and recipes. Provide index cards and pencils or pens people can use to write down the cookie recipes they like.
- Visit local pizza parlors to see if they’d be interested in donating pizza and other goodies for a Night Out Against Crime Pizza Party. Serve drinks in stadium cups personalized with your organization’s logo. It’s a great way to support local businesses, feed the public, and promote your brand.
- Hold a chili cook-off and encourage eateries and home cooks to participate. Have those who attend your Night Out Against Crime event vote on their favorites. Give the winner a travel first-aid kit and emergency rechargeable crank flashlight.
Kidding Around
Make your Night Out Against Crime event family-friendly. Plan fun events for kids to get them engaged. Here are some ideas:
- Organize a book swap and encourage families to bring children’s books that they no longer want. Tuck a bookmark inside every book.
- Have a local artist set up a booth and offer face painting for youngsters. Give each child who gets his or her face painted a sticker or temporary tattoo.
- Help children cool down from the summer heat and have fun at the same time. Hold a water balloon toss competition and give all participants an educational activities book.Hand out backpacks to the winners.
Night Out Against Crime is a great time to bring your community together to focus on safety. Use it as a time to educate, promote, and have fun! Together community members can support each other in an effort to stay safe and make their neighborhood a better place to live.
