GOSHEN TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Hundreds of residents gathered behind Marr-Cook Elementary School on Tuesday evening for Goshen Township’s annual National Night Out celebration, an event the township said keeps drawing bigger crowds each year.
The Goshen Township Police Department hosted the community gathering, which featured vendor booths, food trucks and activities for families, according to the township. The turnout kept growing through the evening as neighbors mingled with officers away from the pressures of a typical patrol shift.
Among the attractions was a UC Health Air Care & Mobile Care helicopter, put on static display for families to view up close, giving children a rare look at the emergency air ambulance service that serves the region’s hospitals.
“A huge thank you to the Goshen Township Police Department for putting on an event that just keeps getting better each year,” the township said in a social media post following the event. “We’re so proud to be part of this community!”
National Night Out began in 1984, when Matt Peskin, a volunteer with a community watch program in a Philadelphia suburb, sought to link hundreds of local neighborhood watch groups under one banner. The inaugural event drew about 2.5 million participants across 400 communities in 23 states, according to the National Association of Town Watch, which Peskin founded in 1981. The campaign is now held annually on the first Tuesday in August in thousands of communities nationwide, pairing law enforcement with residents through block parties and cookouts rather than official police business, the association said.
Goshen Township Police Department has patrolled the township’s roughly 34 square miles and approximately 16,500 residents since it was founded in 1971, according to the department. Stanley Cable served as the department’s first chief, appointed that November with two part-time patrolmen under him; the agency did not become a full-time force until 1976. Bob Rose has led the department as chief since 2022, when he was appointed Goshen Township’s chief of police, township administrator and public safety director.
The information contained in this story was obtained from Goshen Township.