by John Dowd
“It’s a way for law enforcement to interact with their community,” said Kristin Kruse with the Stevensville Police Department about the upcoming National Night Out event. The program has been around for many years, nationwide. However, this will only be the Stevensville Police Department’s second year participating. According to Kruse, last year was such a success they decided to continue.
The event will be Tuesday, August 1st from 5 to 8 p.m. at Lewis and Clark Park. The same agencies that participated last year will be there again this year, along with others. Some of these will include Montana Highway Patrol, Stevensville Fire Department, Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office K9 unit, Life Flight, Stevensville Police Department, and others.
Visitors can wander around, participating in various games and activities hosted by the numerous agencies. Some of these activities will include a prize drawing, free face-painting and children will be able to help paint a mural that is being put up in the park, on a maintenance building adjacent to the sports field.
The mural will feature scenes of mountains, animals and more. Kids will be able to put their handprints in paint on the bottom part of the mountain scene, as flowers. The artist, Sonia Couillard, is volunteering her time to do the piece, and was the one who did the murals at Burnt Fork Market, in Stevensville. Stevensville Parks and Recreation reached out to her to see if she would do the project and she agreed. Paint and supplies for the piece has been donated by Project 59870 and the sprayer for priming the wall was loaned out by Stevensville Hardware and the wall was primed by the Kruse family.
During National Night Out, the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Department K-9 unit will be doing a drug finding demonstration, Life Flight will land at 5 p.m. to kick off the event and the fire department will be set up for participants to try to shoot a target with the fire hose.
There will be a dunk tank, featuring the current Stevensville Police Department Chief Mac Sosa, the new officer Cassie Kopsa and others. Dunk tank tickets will be sold on site, $1 per ticket for three tries.
There will be an ice cream truck serving free ice cream. Hot dogs and water will also be free at the event. Much of these things were paid for by funds saved from the department’s Chili Cook-Off.
According to Kruse, “This is a chance for the public to interact with all of these first responders and have some fun.” The event is open to all the public, and the participating departments and agencies encourage people to come out and join them.