National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police/community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie, according to the NNO website. The campaign is celebrating its 40th year of enhancing relationships between law enforcement and their community through positive interactions.

“I think that this is a wonderful event because it brings a lot of different community partners and people together,” Fort Dodge Police Chief Dennis Quinn said.

There will be free food, drinks, ice cream, cotton candy, sno cones, goodies, yard games and more. Local law enforcement agencies, as well as the Fort Dodge Fire Department, will have some of their vehicles and equipment on hand to give tours and demonstrations..

“It’s a great chance for people to get out and talk to different people in the community and meet some of the people that respond to different things in the community,” Quinn said.

-Messenger file photo
Ryker Taylor, then 8, and Gracie Taylor, then 2, spent some time behind bars at National Night Out in August 2022. Their parents, Shay Taylor and Bailey Taylor, an assistant Webster County attorney, later bailed them out.

Quinn said National Night Out is always a fun event with positive interactions with kids and people in the community.

“I think it’s a perfect thing that our community can do right now, and people need this kind of thing,” he said.

-Messenger file photo
Fort Dodge Police Department Lt. Zach Stanley places a helmet on Teyden Junkman, then 5, of Fort Dodge, while showing the kids the equipment the Fort Dodge/Webster County Special Emergency Response Team uses at National Night Out at City Park Square in August 2022.

-Messenger file photo
Several kids play in a water sprinkler coming from a Fort Dodge Fire Department ladder truck at National Night Out in August 2022.