For the kids who attended, Hollister’s seventh annual National
Night Out was like Halloween in August.
The atmosphere surrounding the melange of booths and activities,
which were handing out an assortment of free goodies, conveyed an
innocent frenzy that only sugar-infused children can impart.
For the kids who attended, Hollister’s seventh annual National Night Out was like Halloween in August.
The atmosphere surrounding the melange of booths and activities, which were handing out an assortment of free goodies, conveyed an innocent frenzy that only sugar-infused children can impart.
The festivities, which were held for the past three years at the Veteran’s Memorial Park, returned to the park next to the Briggs Building by the coordinator of the event, Hollister Police Officer David Blair.
“It’s community-based and it needs to be downtown,” Blair said.
The location and increased community-based support were major factors in boosting this year’s attendance, which had dwindled last year.
“We’re fortunate enough to have people who want to volunteer and help out with this kind of stuff,” Blair said.
Blair said 90 percent of the booths were organizations within the city, and all but one was within the county, which was great advertising for groups that many people don’t even know exist.
“It’s really important to get people out to meet the police department and other law enforcement,” Blair said.
“Plus, it’s a zero-budget item. It basically costs the city nothing.”
Most of the booths had someone who was bilingual, which was paramount in getting a large part of the Hispanic population out and informed to what the city provides, Blair said.
One service important to child safety was the free fingerprinting provided by the police department.
“We want to get as many kids fingerprinted as possible,” Blair said, adding that fingerprinting children, as well as giving a hair sample for DNA and a recent photo, are all steps to help facilitate child protection.
Marisa Hernandez-Soria, 7, came with her mother, Celia Hernandez-Soria, of Hollister, to take in the safety event.
“My daughter likes to get fingerprinted, which is a really good thing, and I got a lot of good information,” Hernandez-Soria said.
In between fingerprinting and the massive cotton candy – half in her hand and half on her face – the rest of Marisa’s time was spent on the fire truck jump house and winning a new pet.
“I got a pet fish,” Marisa said, “and I named it Goldie.”
The program has been operating on a national level for the past 20 years, and was designed to heighten crime and prevention awareness and strengthen police-community partnerships.
Informing people to the resources they have to help preclude crime or accurately report it is a major step in decreasing crime locally, said HPD Capt. Bob Brooks.
“The goal is to bring the community out to see all the services provided for them,” Brooks said. “It’s also a good chance to see how everything networks.”
Numerous vehicles were on display, from fire trucks to police cruisers, and making its second appearance at the event was a semitrailer intended to demonstrate the “no zones” truck drivers face while on the road.
The no zones are places directly in front and in back of the truck, and two spots on either side where the driver is blind to another car. Event-goers were encouraged to sit in the semi to witness the spots first-hand.
“People always say we’re blind, and we actually are,” said Barron Shackleton, a driver for Graniterock and Hollister resident.
Natalie Wolf, a Hollister resident who commutes to work on Highway 129 everyday, found the demonstration extremely informative and a little scary.
“You can’t see anything in those spots,” Wolf said, then jokingly added, “it explains a lot about their (truck drivers) behavior.”
The San Benito County Health Department had a booth set up to provide free or very low-cost helmets for children.
For Hollister resident Michael Eastman and his 5-year-old daughter Caetlin, who had taken the training wheels off her bike that day, it was a perfect opportunity at bicycle safety.
“They fit the helmet for her, showed her how to adjust the straps and the proper way to wear a helmet,” Eastman said.
For Caetlin, however, it was passing the test at the poisonous household materials booth that was the highlight of the evening.
“I got all the questions right,” she said, “and I won a Nemo fish.”
