Photography by Juan Walker

On Tuesday Aug. 6, the Camden County Police Department joined with the county and City of Camden to once again host a celebration of National Night Out at Farnham Park.

For an agency such as ours, steeped in a culture of service to our community and partnership with the residents we serve, National Night Out has always been an important date on the calendar. National Night Out – first launched in Montgomery County, Pa., 40 years ago – is an event focused on strengthening the bonds between neighbors in communities large and small across our country and strengthening the bonds between those neighbors and their local police officers.

To that end, the Camden County Police Department, since its inception in 2013, has always pulled out all the stops for National Night Out and taken part in every neighborhood event we’ve been invited to. Some years that has been as many as dozen different events.

This year, the main event was at Farnham Park and hundreds of Camden children, parents and senior citizens came out to enjoy the night with us along with Camden firefighters and personnel from other county and state law enforcement agencies who were on hand. Attendees got to enjoy hot dogs and Mr. Softee ice cream on us, enjoy a demonstration of police K9s in action, watch a tense basketball contest between police officers and firefighters and get an up close look at a variety of emergency response vehicles. Chief Rodriguez and all of our deputy chiefs stopped by and enjoyed chatting with residents.

Beyond Farnham Park though, our officers took part in four other National Night Out events this year staged in different city neighborhoods, including North Camden, Centerville, Waterfront South and Ablett Village. We also paid for Mr. Softee to visit all of these events and make sure everyone celebrating National Night Out across the city could enjoy some ice cream.

And while the rain that rolled in ended the festivities a little earlier than planned, overall National Night Out was a tremendous success.

Written by Michael Daniels