National Night Out, according to its website, is an “annual community-building campaign,” and is usually held on the first Tuesday in August.
During a normal year, Bucyrus usually sees around twenty parties, while this year, there were only five hosted by the Herb family, Fulton family, Hord family, Cooper family, and Bollinger family.
“This is probably my fourth year hosting a party. I started hosting it because I realized that we didn’t know half of our neighbors, and we wanted to try to get to know them,” Anna Cooper said.
The First Presbyterian Church on S Poplar St. hosted a party again this year, after not having one last year. “This is our second time hosting it. We recognize COVID as going on, but we just felt that this was something that needed to go on for the community, our church members, and our neighbors,” church member Al Fulton said. “We are just happy to have as many people as we do here.”
“This is our fifth or sixth year hosting a party, and we started because the neighbor across the street approached us and told us about it, so we decided to co-host it and we have been ever since,” Kimberly Herb said. “It’s very worthwhile and it’s great to get to meet neighbors. We have had people move in and we haven’t got to meet them because of COVID, so this was a good time.”
Though the number of parties was down, those who hosted parties said that they didn’t want it to let it prohibit them from having a fun community night.
Jill and Leonard Hord have been hosting their area’s party for going on four years now. “We got into hosting because we inherited it from a neighbor who moved away,” Jill Hord said.
The Hords said that the current pandemic didn’t really affect their decision to host their party. “We were worried that not as many people would show up, which has happened, but we wanted to still have it,” Leonard Hord said. “I liked that it got pushed back to October due to COVID because this weather isn’t as hot, and I wish it would stay in October.”
Sue Bollinger, who is pretty much a pro at hosting National Night Out parties, has been hosting the annual event for at least twenty-five years. “We had it at other neighbors’ and they got older and decided that they couldn’t do it anymore, so I gladly volunteered to take it over, and I’ve had it ever since,” Bollinger said. “I never even considered not having it this year due to COVID. The crowds weren’t here and not as many neighbors were here, but there was no doubt in my mind that we were going to have it. We just figured that if nobody showed up, we would have an awful lot of food to eat.”
Though National Night Out still happened and put a little bit of normalcy in some people’s lives, those who enjoy the annual celebration hope that comes next year, things can get back to normal.
