From modest beginnings 35 years ago in a Philadelphia suburb, the National Night Out program has grown significantly. This year it is expected to involve 38 million people in 16,000 communities, including 248 in Pennsylvania and 24 in the five-county Times News area.

That’s a far cry from participation in the first event in 1984, which involved 2.5 million neighbors across 400 communities in 23 states.

National Night Out is held annually on the first Tuesday of August — this year it will be Aug. 6 — and is billed as a community-building campaign that promotes police-public partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie. The program unfolds over parts of a four-hour period in most participating communities, generally between 5 and 9 p.m. The rain date is the following day.

I am a big fan of National Night Out because its goal is to make neighborhoods safer, its residents more caring and to enhance the relationship between the public and law-enforcement personnel and other first responders. It’s an ideal way to bring police, emergency personnel and residents together under positive circumstances, and it also is an important ingredient in fostering trust and respect between the constituencies.

Sponsoring organizations and neighborhoods host block parties, festivals, parades, cookouts and various other community events with safety demonstrations, seminars, youth events, visits from emergency personnel, exhibits, parades and more.

National Night Out’s origins go back to 1984 when Matt Peskin, a volunteer with the Wynnewood, Montgomery County, Crime Watch program got the idea for a police-public program to allow interaction and understanding.

In 1981, he established the nonprofit National Association of Town Watch as a way for community leaders, law-enforcement agencies and local officials to work together to bolster crime prevention.

But Peskin said he knew something more was needed. National Night Out was introduced in August of 1984 through an already established network of law enforcement agencies, neighborhood watch groups, civic organizations, state and regional crime prevention associations and volunteers.

“You know, 99 percent of us are law-abiding, so when you have the majority come out in force, it shows criminals that people are fed up and that they are going to look for suspicious activity; they are going to call police, and it really helps to demonstrate the strong police/community partnership that is out there,” Peskin said.

Here is a perfect example of how one person turned an embryonic idea into a national movement. For his part, Peskin has been recognized by the White House, the U.S. Department of Justice and Congress for his leadership and contributions.

In addition to being president of the National Night Out organization, Peskin is president of the Lower Merion Township Community Watch program.

Here are the communities in the Times News area which will be participating in National Night Out:

Carbon County: Lehighton, Jim Thorpe and Weatherly

Schuylkill County: Coaldale, Tamaqua, Mahanoy City and Minersville

Monroe County: Stroudsburg and Tobyhanna Township

Northampton County: Lehigh Township, Bethlehem Township, Hellertown, Lower Saucon Township, Northampton, Tatamy and West Easton

Lehigh County: Slatington, Allentown, Emmaus, Salisbury Township, South Whitehall Township, Upper Macungie Township, Upper Saucon Township and Whitehall Township.

To get information on the program in your community, call 800-648-3688 or email National Night Out at info@natw.org.

I’d like to echo the words of Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. representative to NATO and former U.S. senator, who said, “The best way to build a safer community is to know your neighbors and your surroundings. National Night Out triumphs over a culture that isolates us from each other and allows us to rediscover our own communities.”

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com