National Night Outs Back On Track In Lower Bucks

LOWER BUCKS COUNTY, PA —One week after being postponed due to weather, National Night Outs are back on track in numerous communities for Tuesday night.

Six towns have rescheduled the annual event with most planned on Tuesday, another on Wednesday, and one later this month.

These are the rescheduled events:

• Middletown Township Police Department —Rescheduled for 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in the parking lot of Municipal Building, located at 5 Municipal Way, Langhorne.
• Penndel Police Benevolent Association —Rescheduled for 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Penndel Police Department, located at 300 Bellevue Ave. in Penndel.
• Lower Southampton Police Department —Rescheduled for 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Lower Southampton Township Building (Baseball Fields)
• Falls Township Police Department —Rescheduled for 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday at Falls Township Community Park.
• Bensalem Police —Rescheduled for 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Bensalem Township Pavilion, located at 2400 Byberry Rd. in Bensalem.
• Warminster Township —Township officials have announced plans to reschedule the event for Wednesday.

National Night Out began out of the Philadelphia suburbs. In the 1970s, Matt Peskin volunteered for Lower Merion's neighborhood watch, patrolling his neighborhood and often collaborating with local police.

He found the collaboration between law enforcement and civilians to be successful and began collaborating with similar groups, establishing the National Association of Town Watch in 1981.

But Peskin decided something more was needed. So three years later, the association celebrated the first National Night Out, which involved 400 communities across 23 states.

The 41st year of the event will involve millions of people from 16,500 communities from all 50 states. Click here for more on National Night Out.

National Night Out is designed to heighten crime prevention awareness; generate support for, and participation in, local anti-crime programs; strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships, and; send a message to criminals that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.

The annual event has spread to 17,000 communities encompassing 38 million people, according to National Night Out's website. Many of the events combine festivities with education about local police initiatives.