Carson City National Night Out aims to bring awareness to domestic violence

Carson City is hosting its annual National Night Out event Tuesday to help raise awareness for resources to fight domestic violence in the community.

National Night Out is one of the biggest events put on by the Carson City Sheriff’s Office, often drawing thousands of people to Mills Park to participate in a host of activities. This year, there will be booths from various departments in the Sheriff’s Office, DEA, CASA, Red Cross and more. Divisions from the Sparks and Washoe Tribe police department will also be there.

National Night Out is Tuesday, Aug. 4 from 5-8 p.m., at Mills Park.

“This emphasizes the importance of police and community partnership,” said Lisa Davis, community prevention coordinator for the Carson City Sheriff’s Office.

Around the country, more than 16 million communities host National Night Out as a way to heighten awareness about crime and substance issues in the community. The Carson City Sheriff’s Office has won awards for its National Night Out events for 13 years in a row. Last year, National Night Out didn’t happen due to weather complications, which left many Carson City residents disappointed. However, because Davis was able to demonstrate still how great the partnership was between the sheriff’s office and the community, it still won an award. Davis said it was because she was still able to show the judges just how strong of a community bond there was between the vendors, organizations and public safety.

Because of that, the theme this year will be Partnership in Action and Advocates to End Domestic Violence will be prominently featured.

“We picked advocates because we looked at the need in our community based on crime reporting and statistics,” said Davis. “The issue of domestic violence kept coming up in our community and so that is what we wanted to base our awareness on.”

Besides providing domestic violence resources at the event, the advocates were picked to feature because Lisa said families going through those situations need to have a bit of fun in their lives and that’s what the event is about.

“We will introduce the community to the resources that can help start over because there has got to be life beyond the crisis,” Davis said. “So we are going to have fun. These families are so stressed out (dealing with the violence) that they have forgotten to play, it just goes right out the window because life is all so problem focused.”

There will be games, music, activities, food and a bounce house for people to enjoy. The Sheriff’s Office will also have demonstrations with SWAT, the K9 unit, CareFlight and more.

One young Carson City boy enjoys National Night Out almost more than Christmas. Davis said that 9-year-old Nate Stephens’ great grandmother e-mailed Davis last year asking if Nate could hand write thank you letters to every vendor that’s present at National Night Out, and for this year’s event, he wanted to make key chains for every key figure who attends the event. So Davis gave him a spot with the sheriff’s office booth because Nate wanted to set up a poster board thank you card to have people sign it at the event.

“Sometimes people wonder why we do this event, and this is why,” Davis said. “I know my program has an impact on the relationship with the community and citizens and I think that improves the quality of life.”