NATIONAL NIGHT OUT

National Night Out is an annual event hosted at Bryant Park with the assistance of the Riverside Police Department (RPD.) The event held several activities for kids as well as freebies for them. The Assistant recreation coordinator, Daisy Brown, helped set everything up. The event provided a cheer performance and a basketball game between the park’s team and the police officers. “The Riverside Police Department explorers have a friendly community basketball game with our community members,” said Brown.

There were many booths at the court, but the most popular one was Raising Canes. They were the first to arrive, and they had a coin drop game with prizes, wherein your prize depended on where your coin landed. They had frisbees, footballs, bracelets, and carabiner clips. Two people were working the stand, one being Elizabeth, who works with Canes and was at the event handing prizes to people who played the game. “My role in the event is just participating in helping the kids get gifts and I enjoy it,” said Elizabeth.

The event was enjoyed by many people, one being a volunteer who helped run the stand for the Project Hope group, a group of 12+ kids who help around the community. Their stand gave chalk, coloring pages, crayons, and pens. The volunteer, Uriel Rangel, talked about how the event was fun and how the stalls were entertaining. “The events are pretty fun, there are a lot of things to do, like the stands,” said Rangel.

The main event of the night was the basketball game between the RPD and the park’s community team. Though the police started strong, the community took the win by displaying excellent teamwork, leading to them scoring more points. The police team played well, just lacked a bit of teamwork. One of the players on the police’s team was Conner Weddle, who gave provided his thoughts on the game. “My thoughts on the game were to win. We did lack it a little bit in teamwork, so we have to work on that,” said Weddle.