I think it’s super important to connect with your neighbors.”

Michelle Dearmon

When Fire Inspector Jamie Stevens and Hastings Police Officer Georgeann Freeman pulled into the National Night Out block party at the 300 block of Sixth Street West, the blaring sirens pulled neighbors from their homes.
Parents emerged onto stoops and faces appeared in windows. Children on bikes shot from driveways as a crowd quickly formed around the police car and fire truck. Soon a line trailed from the fire truck’s open door as kids waited their turn to sound the truck’s siren.
A similar scene would play out across more than a dozen block parties in town, all celebrating National Night Out.
National Night Out dates back to 1984, created by a group of community watches in Philadelphia. Since then, the event has spread throughout the country as a way for neighbors to come together face-to-face.
For so many who came out to block parties across the city, that comradery, sitting down with the strangers who live down the block was the explicit purpose.
Linda Ferris, the organizer of the block party at the 300 block of Sixth Street West, was a first-time organizer for a block party. Ferris has been in the neighborhood for five years and attended other National Night Out block parties in the neighborhood before, but this year set up her own.
“It’s a great way to get the neighbors engaged,” said Ferris.
Ferris joked with neighbors about “still being new to the neighborhood” despite being there for half a decade, not an uncommon refrain for the city where some measure their stay in generations.
At Lion’s Park, the Public Safety Advisory Committee served hot dogs which were gone in an hour, a testament to the crowds that came out for the event.
Booths lined the park from nonprofits like IDEA and United Way of Hastings, to stands for Pleasant Hill Library and Community Ed.
At the booth for Hastings Public Schools, Superintendent Dr. Michelle Wherkamp-Herman greeted parents and community members.
“I truly have been very welcomed,” said Wherkamp-Herman.
When State Trooper Ben Olson landed the State Patrol’s helicopter at Lion’s Park, Hastings Police held back the crowd until the helicopter’s blades stopped spinning.
Only then could children and parents alike run into the field to take pictures and peer into the helicopter’s windows.
For the event, Hastings Police Chief Dave Wilske sent in the request for a fly-in back in March and therefore was “top of the list” on the busy night, said Olson.
Over the years, trooper fly-ins for National Night Out have become “absurdly popular which is kinda fun,” said Olson. Hastings is an easy 15-minute flight from St. Paul.
This summer, smoke from Canadian wildfires has drastically reduced visibility for pilots in recent weeks, said Olson.
What has kept him busy, however, is the recent uptick in carjackings in the Twin Cities where State Trooper helicopters are used in order to keep car chases slow.
One neighbor that many recognized from Lion’s Park was a four-legged one: Pickles the miniature pony from Lucky U Stables. Pickles, alongside owner Jessica Urbach, greeted residents alongside the “lucky misfits” from their barn ranging from pigs to goats to cows.
The stables host summer camps where Pickles has become somewhat of an unofficial mascot with several residents—and not just children—coming up to pet the pony after recognizing him from camps or previous events.
“Everybody in the barn knowns Pickles,” laughed Urbach.
At Life Tabernacle Church’s block party, attendees shot empty water bottles with nerf guns and tossed bean bags in the street.
This year is the church’s fourth year hosting a National Night Out party, echoing some of the community outreach already done during regular programming.
“I think it’s super important to connect with your neighbors,” said Michelle Dearmon, one of the organizers at the event.
Damon Dearmon, another organizer for the event, scrambled to take pictures of getting put in the back of a police car as the police pulled in for the event.
“I had never been in one before,” laughed Damon.