Time for a night out

OUR OPINION
Published: July 31, 2008

There is another opportunity to get involved in your community this Saturday night. The Wellington community will be celebrating National Night Out.

This is the 25th anniversary of “National Night Out,” a nationwide annual event sponsored by the National Town Watch.

It is designed to strengthen communities by encouraging neighborhoods to engage in stronger relationships with each other and with their local law enforcement partners.

Toward that end, Manassas city police and Prince William County law enforcement offices will join Wellington Neighborhood Watch members, residents, owners and friends at the Wellington Community
Center at 6 p.m. for a walk throughout the neighborhood.

Our local law enforcement are as much a part of our community as anybody, and it is important the residents get to know the people that are hired to protect them.

By getting to know our local law enforcement we can become better acquainted not only with the ways they try to keep us safe, but we can also learn what we can do to protect ourselves.

National Night Out also serves to bring the community together. On Saturday, Wellington community members can get out and meet the neighbors who might, until now, have just been nodding
acquaintances.

A close community not only improves social ties, but it also leads to safer neighborhoods. A close-knit community knows who is supposed to be in the neighborhood and its members are interested in
the well-being of their neighbors.

Other communities are also participating in their own National Night Out celebrations.

The Prince William County Police Department will hold a county-wide observance of the event at the Sean T. Connaughton Plaza on Saturday from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Wildwood Condominiums will have its National Night Out on Saturday, starting at 7 p.m.

The Georgetown South Community and the Weems Neighborhood Watch Area will have their celebrations on Aug. 5. Georgetown South’s will be from 6 to 8:30 p.m., and Weems’ will start at 6 p.m.

The city of Manassas Park will have its celebration on Aug. 5 in Costello Park from 4 to 8 p.m.

And, of course, The National Night Out anniversary celebration will take place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 5 at 4 p.m.

We encourage everybody who can to participate in these events. Meet the people you see on the streets everyday and make them strangers no more.