National Night Out Citizen Block Parties Match Increased City of Oakland Effort for Safer Streets

One Kelton Court and 145 Monte Cresta residents took a walk around the block with other local neighbors to get to know each other and increase awareness of neighborhood safety and general environmental issues. This year at least 35 people from neighboring buildings joined us for a community ice cream social after about half the group walked around the block.

City of Oakland Departments of Police (officer presented National Night Out recognition t-shirt); Fire (James Williams with crew); and Human Services (Kelsey Crowe) plus Alameda County District of Attorney's Office (Karen Meredith) representatives stopped by to thank the group for participating in this annual event raising awareness of their efforts, including Violence Prevention and Programs for Children & Families, Youth, Adults & Seniors. They declined ice cream and cookies because they had 15 other groups to visit that evening, proof that this citywide movement is growing. The Office of Emergency Services should announce soon how many block parties took place in 2007.

Although our group was not televised as some neighborhood block parties were, this year a Piedmont Avenue Neighborhood Improvement League (PANIL) representative photographed our group, so we got local coverage matching that we received in April from participating in the citywide disaster drill. Most agreed that we need to keep up the community effort and make the time to get together more often. Thank you to safety representatives organizing the group this time: Della Mundy, Adele Bertaud, Marjory Harmon, Sheri Aylesworth, Ysabel Bertolucci; to neighbor Ruby Long; and to new neighbors we haven't met before who came by.