The annual National Night Out is an event where the community comes together to celebrate the partnership between law enforcement community. Thousands of people gathered at Kings Park in Wake Village on Oct. 2 to celebrate the community’s police force.

Alisa Willborn and Tish Hicks have been in charge of the celebration in Wake Village since it started a decade ago.

“Ten years ago, I started National Night Out and we [held the event] in the gym at Wake Village First Baptist Church,” Hicks said. “[We] only had 13 vendors [and] only about 200 people showed up.”

As the years went on, Hicks and Willborn noticed a growing interest in the event, so they moved it to a bigger location.

“[National Night Out] just kept growing and growing, and we moved here to Kings Park and it snowballed,” Hicks said. “Now we have anywhere from a thousand to fifteen hundred people come through and tonight we have 45 vendors set up on the field.”

Scott Thornhill, a troop leader with Trail Life USA, brings his scouts and they set up games for people to play.

“This is our fourth year to be here. I never thought the kids would like this as much as they do. [our game is called] water bottle rockets,” Thornhill said. “[Kids] love getting wet and it’s a whole lot of fun.”

Several Texas High students, such as junior Jonathan Jobe, came out to participate.

“I’ve seen a lot of people I know here, I’ve even seen my old fourth grade teacher,” Jobe said. “I’ve come [to National Night Out] almost every year.”

Davida High who is over D2I dance company along with all of her other teachers in the company performed with the dancers who practiced for weeks before their performance.

“We’ve only missed one year and it was the very first year. The girls at the studio spent some time pulling together dances and choreography, and they volunteered to come up on Saturday morning for three hours and put our show together,” High said. “National Night Out is so important to our community [so we] just [want] to let everybody know that we’re all in this together.”