First Coventry Police National Night Out Tuesday

The event is aimed at creating a more cohesive relationship with residents and fostering interactions between community members and the nation’s police departments, including Coventry Police.

The free event invites all community members to gather for an exciting evening of fun at the Town Hall annex, from 6 to 8 p.m. There will be a wide array of food trucks, face-painting fun for the little ones, a photo booth, inflatables, and a dunk tank.

“This is a great opportunity for our Department and our community to come together for a night and relax and have fun,” said Luitenant Alyssa Cloutier. “We have been planning this event since last year and the Parks and Recreation Department has helped us out a lot.”

Cloutier explained that one of the main draws to this unique happening is the student resource officers. Both the middle school and the high school School Resource Officers, Jadine Ferri and John Nickerson, will be there. They have also volunteered for the dunk tank.

“They are not shy,” laughed Cloutier.

The community-building campaign aims to promote local partnerships camaraderie with police. It began back in 1984 and now is reportedly celebrated in 17 thousand communities throughout the United States with a record attendance of 38 million neighbors.

“[The] National Night Out [event] makes our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live. National Night Out enhances the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community. Furthermore, it provides a great opportunity to bring police and neighbors together under positive circumstances,” according to the National Night Out website.

Cloutier said the hope is to make the event an annual occurrence in Coventry.

“We hope everyone comes out and has fun meeting our officers and enjoys a good time together.”

Author: Karena Garrity

Karena Garrity, a contributing writer for WarwickPost.com, has covered local news and feature stories for several publications, including CTNewsJunkie, Connecticut Magazine, Westerly Sun Newspaper, Northeast Equestrian Life Magazine and Patch.com.