SPARTANBURG, S.C. (WSPA)- Thirteen neighborhoods gathered at twelve locations throughout the City of Spartanburg for National Night Out on Tuesday.
“National Night Out,” was born out of a simple act of solidarity.
“It started many years ago where citizens would come out to sit on their porches and turn their porch light on just giving criminals or criminal activity that communities were going to unite together and take a stand against criminal activity,” Major Art Littlejohn, with the Spartanburg Police Department said.
Over the years, that simple act has evolved into a much larger event, “we have been doing this for many years and so each neighborhood has their own authentic style of what they want to do, Kathy Hill, Community Relations Manager with the City of Spartanburg said.
Whether that is games or block parties, Littlejohn said it’s something the community looks forward to every year, “where children come out and play, everyone from the youth and elderly come and enjoy an opportunity in neighborhoods.”
For Spartanburg, it’s their 40th year participating.
“We love it, we do we love it we just like to see how the partnership with the city, with the city police department, city residents, city employees, council and everybody coming together and just showing support that we are all working together to try to keep crime down,” Hill said.
“I say all the time officers are people and were your police department, so we really feel like that’s an opportunity to connect,” Littlejohn said. “What we want is for people to feel comfortable reaching out to law enforcement and also an opportunity for them to feel comfortable sharing information with their neighbor.”
Spartanburg Police Department said that they used to host the event in August but have moved it to October because the weather is a little cooler.
