WS Chronicle

Even with a torrential downpour, the National Night Out at Burkhead United Methodist Church went off without a hitch last Tuesday evening, Aug. 7.

National Night Out is an annual community building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live.  It also serves to enhance the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community.

Millions of people across the nation take part in National Night Out in all 50 states.  This is the 35th year the National Night Out has been held.

“This is our first attempt to do any type of event related to National Night Out, but I think it has gone fairly well,” said Murray Sink, church organizer.  “We started meeting eight weeks ago for this and reading all of the materials from the national committee. It was somewhat harder for us but next year we will be better prepared.

“Looking around, if it had rained and nobody came I would have been very disappointed,” Sink continued.  “Despite the rain, we have a good crowd of folks here doing what we wanted them to do, which was to talk to one another.  It was frustrating having to move inside but we are still accomplishing what we wanted, which was to also bring the neighborhood together.”

The church had a number of activities planned outdoors for the night, such as Tai Chi, a story teller, presentation by the local police department and more.  They moved everything inside and were able to accomplish their mission.

Rev. Dr. Carl Manuel, senior pastor of Burkhead United, stated that the rain would not put a damper on the spirit of the night. 

“We planned to have everything outside, but since the rain has come, we moved everything inside,” said Manuel.  “We are blessed to have the facility to do that, so we will have things in the fellowship hall, but hopefully the rain will slack up so the kids will be able to go outside and see the fire truck.”

Manuel says he is blessed to lead a church that “has the energy and concerns for the community” as he does.  He says every idea he has brought to the church has been approved. 

“We are going to do more, especially with the school system this year,” he continued.  “I’d like to have a tutoring program to help the kids perform better on the end of school testing.”

Burkhead wanted to give a special thank you to Chick-fil-A, Subway, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and local grocery stores for their assistance with the National Night Out.