Even though the guest of honor was late, dozens of families and city police staff enjoyed the evening Monday during Community Night at the David M. McCarthy Memorial Ice Arena in Batavia.
Batu, the canine currently in the K-9 program that receives proceeds from the event, was otherwise occupied at the start of the event, lead organizer and police Detective Matthew Wojtaszczyk said.
"Our canine got called away to a call, but normally he would be here; it serves as a fundraiser for the canine program as well. So it's kind of dual purpose, but the biggest thing is just chatting with the community and getting to know people who come out,” he said at the Evans Street arena. “It's extremely important to us just to meet with the community, spend some time together when not on calls, in a relaxed environment. We have, as you can see, the bounce house, food, just a gathering of the community and us.”
Community Night is an annual community-building campaign that promotes strong police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make safer neighborhoods. Various organizations and groups participated with games, activities, informational displays and free food.
Police officers are often en route to calls for assistance or response to incidents in the city and don’t have the opportunity to just chat with folks on a casual basis, which can be a valuable bonding tool, Wojtaszczyk said.
“We don't always get the chance to just kind of kick back and meet with the community in a relaxed environment,” he said. “I think it provides that platform to eat together, to hang out together. You'll see we have officers all over.
“So I want to give a shout out to our diamond sponsors for sure, we had a ton of sponsors this year. Western New York Heroes, Batavia Downs Gaming, Upstate Niagara, and O-At-Ka Milk Products all came through huge for us in terms of sponsorships. We have our first responders, city fire is here, a huge shout out to Grace Baptist; they provided 35 volunteers to come out and serve food,” he said. “But there's just a lot of all the information here, too, and everything. We have 35-plus vendors of different community outreach programs, and it provides an opportunity for them too, as well, to connect with the community. It just brings everyone together. That's the whole point.”
Batu made it to the party and met up with many attendees. The police department took on the community night event four or five years ago, Wojtaszczyk said, and began to build it into a bigger happening.
“And we've just kind of grown it more and more,” he said. “And now we have a pretty big event. The weather, I think, kept some people away, but it’s a good event, and it’s grown every year.”
Photos by Howard Owens
