Burr Ridge Celebrates National Night Out

With the summer weather bringing an active storm season this year, the Leatherwood children have been a bit worried.

“We’d hear the tornado sirens going off, and there’s lightening everywhere,” said their mother, Nicole. “They’ve been very, very worried about that.”

So when Nicole and her husband, David, brought their three children from Darien to Burr Ridge’s Harvester Park Tuesday evening for the National Night Out event, they were able to get some safety tips from the experts, and create a fire plan.

“Hopefully...you instill it in them young, so when an emergency becomes, it gets to be intuitive,” Nicole said.

Although the skies threatened to bring storms during the two-hour crime and drug prevention event Tuesday, Mother Nature waited and gave more than 250 people the chance to attend.

“The weather held out, I’m just so grateful for that,” said Officer Angie Zucchero of the Burr Ridge Police Department.

Sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch, the National Night Out is in its 28th year. Locally, the Burr Ridge Police Department has been organizing the safety event for four years, Zucchero said.
Along with safety and crime prevention tips, the gathering gave residents a chance to get to know their neighbors. Zucchero said she stresses the “3-2-3” rule when speaking with community groups. That means people should get to know the neighbors living in the three homes across the street from them, the two on each side of their home, and the three behind their house.

“If everybody did that and kept an eye out for each other,” then you will be able to recognize the people and cars in the neighborhood, and tell if there is something wrong, she said.

During National Night Out, children were able to tour emergency vehicles and get to know police officers, fire fighters and paramedics.

Four-and-a-half-year-old Giorgio Georganas of Willowbrook said he thought the inside of the ambulance was “cool.” He especially enjoyed learning how the EKG machine works, or as he called it, “seeing my heart on the TV.”

In between visiting different booths, families ate refreshments and enjoyed entertainment, including magic tricks and a reptile show. At the end of the evening, several prizes were raffled off, including two bikes. While many of the families at Harvester Park said they feel safe in their communities, they agreed it’s always good to talk about safety. Parents especially liked that they could get free digital IDs for their children.

“They made it a very easy process, and very, very family friendly,” said Jack Stanley, while waiting in line for an ID for his son 5-year-old son, Parker.

To learn more about National Night Out, visit nationalnightout.org/nno/.