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.
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