Community Corner
National Night Out Martinez 2024 was a success!
We have expanded a neighborhood gathering to a citywide celebration as National Night Out Martinez
2023 was the first year since 2020 outbreak of Covid that we organized our National Night Out Martinez event. Our five previous National Night Out celebrations from 2015 to 2019 were hosted at the Alhambra Christmas Tree Farm in Martinez under the National Night Out Alhambra Valley organization.
We have expanded the Alhambra Valley event from a neighborhood gathering to a city-wide celebration under the National Night Out Martinez organization. Our location at the Martinez Waterfront Park allows room for more attendees and exhibitors as well as including and integrating other smaller local National Night Out groups to participate.
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The 2024 event on August 6 had an attendance of over 900 is growing as compared to our first Alhambra Valley event in 2015 with approximately 450 attendees. The increase of attendance was driven by a very robust social media PR campaign and community awareness through the city of Martinez.
The event was the culmination of just over 9 months of planning including 15 meetings with a 6-person team who did most of the work organizing this event. Our planning team consisted of Christine Dean, a former member of the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff, Irene Merkel with the Martinez Chamber of Commerce, Cliff Chan with Martinez CERT as well as Kevin Murray, Steve Riccobono, and Pete Sabine.
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We enlisted the support of the Chief of Police, Mayor of Martinez, City Manager and City Council Members. We obtained the endorsement of the Martinez Chamber of Commerce and the Martinez Downtown Association.
The City of Martinez provided a grant of $5,000 to apply toward the event expenses (over $10,000) as a primary sponsorship of the event. The balance of the event expenses was covered by sponsors, including MCE Clean Energy, Les Schwab Tires, Nuvision Credit Union, Pete Sabine Real Estate, Martinez Music Mafia and donations from Republic Services and Bill’s Ace Hardware.
Our National Night Out event brought the community together with local law enforcement and first responder participants who were very grateful for this opportunity to interact with our neighbors in a positive light.
The fundraiser benefited the Martinez Education Foundation with a $1,000 donation to support our local schools.
Our keynote speakers included Martinez Police Chief Andrew White, Martinez City Council Members Satinder Malhi, Jay Howard, Mark Ross, Martinez Vice Mayor Debbie McKillop and Rochelle Badgley representing the Martinez Education Foundation.
The City of Martinez has a population of over 36,000 residents and is near the cities of Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill and Concord. Our event attendees came from these nearby communities as well as Martinez.
The Martinez Waterfront Park is the perfect size venue to hold all that we were having at the event including live music, food trucks, shaved ice treats, kids face painters, a children’s entertainer, a petting zoo and giant colorful kites flew over the park by Tony “the kite man” Jetland.
Free Child ID kits were distributed to attendees by Pete Sabine. Several local security companies showcased their wares and ADT, one of the national sponsors of National Night Out, provided an exhibit at our event.
Also at the event were six area First Responder agencies who brought their police vehicles, ambulance and fire trucks to the location. This included participation from Consolidated Fire, American Medical Response, Martinez Police Department, California Highway Patrol, and the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff. The Martinez Police Department brought 2 motorcycles to the event, much to the glee of the children!
The Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Search and Rescue provided a vehicle display at the event as well as with packets of information which included information concerning crime prevention specifically for children, as well as a Junior Sheriff sticker and a temporary tattoo of a Sheriff’s badge.
Our local CERT (Community Emergency Response Training) team brought their radios and yellow glow-in-the-dark safety vests to provide valuable assistance to our event by coordinating the entire parking effort during the event, which was indispensable for us. Martinez Boy Scout Troop 429 volunteered their time to support the event. We are very grateful to CERT and Scout Troop 429 for their volunteerism.
Click to see theNational Night Out Martinez event video
