National Night Out

Lawrence Township’s annual National Night Out festivities will take place next Tuesday evening, Aug. 7, at Heritage Park, adjacent to the community center of the Eggerts Crossing Village complex at 175 Johnson Ave. from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.

The event is free and open to the entire Lawrence Township community. Food and refreshments, including hot dogs and hamburgers, will be served.

Lawrence Township Police Department officers will be on hand to distribute crime-prevention information and Officer Ron Buchanan will put on a demonstration with one of the department’s police dogs. Emergency vehicles will also be on display.

Representatives from the Lawrence Township Health Department, the Lawrence Township Drug & Alcohol Alliance, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office, and Womanspace have also been invited to attend.

“It’s a night for residents to come together as a community and make a statement against crime,” township police Lt. Thomas Ritter said.

While the township’s organized National Night Event will take place at Eggerts Crossing Village, Ritter invited residents in other neighborhoods to take part by holding block parties with their neighbors or flagging down a passing police officer to talk.

Now in its 29th year, National Night Out is a drug prevention and anti-crime initiative sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch. More than 37 million people in 15,000 communities across the United States and Canada took place in the event last year, according to the National Night Out website.