National Night Out, an event to promote police-community partnerships through a night of free, fun activities, is happening next week. 

This year’s event will take place Aug. 6 from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Linton’s Humphreys Park. 

Free entertainment and food will be provided by he Linton Masonic Lodge #560 and JR Davis Vending. Open Roads, a Linton-based band playing country, rock, blues, and American will perform. Bounce houses will also be available.  

According to a letter from the Greene County National Night Out Committee, the event is one of the largest in Greene County. The event represents law enforcement from across Greene County. The event has drawn crowds of nearly 4,000 people. The committee’s goal is to make this year’s National Night Out the biggest yet. 

“It’s a really good opportunity for our community to meet and interact with our police agencies, our fire agencies, and other people in our community. We try to focus it on kids so they can have that positive interaction,” said Linton Police Department Chief Paul Clark. “We will have lots of participants from local police departments, local fire departments, the prison and their units, and more.”

One of the most popular parts of National Night Out is prizes. When kids register, they are given a card with numbers correlating to partner booths. When visiting booths, partners will sign off on their number. When kids have all their numbers signed off on, they turn their card in for tickets. They can then put their tickets into buckets to win a variety of prizes. 

“We try to give away prizes appropriate from the youngest little babies to teenage kids. We try to find things that would be interesting to them,” Clark said. 

The event is not possible without community partners. Some partners set up booths, some donate funds to purchase prizes, and some do both.