It’s a great time to host a neighborhood meeting!
Why? Because the upcoming holidays are a great excuse to gather your neighbors, share some appetizers and talk about what’s going on in your community! Nothing with Neighborhood Watch needs to be formal – remember Neighborhood Watch is knowing your neighbors, securing your property, reporting suspicious activity, and then building that sense of community!
Some ideas might be:
- A pre-Halloween get-together to discuss safety with the kids, which neighbors will be home and who won’t be, etc. We have Halloween safety flyers for the kids. Ask me and I’ll send them to you.
- A fall ‘help your neighbor’ day. How many of you have elderly or disabled neighbors, or families in the military with the dad deployed, who need a little help raking up leaves or pulling the last of summer’s weeds? Organize volunteers (include the kids) to get your neighborhood cleaned up. Remember, a well kept neighborhood helps keep criminals away.
- Adopt a family for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Contact a local church, Boise Police Victim/Witness Unit (570-6221), local school, or Salvation Army and see what your neighborhood can do together to help someone in need.
- Host an open house. Offer hot cider and cookies.
- Crime prevention discussion on holiday safety, etc. Contact me (Charlene) if you’d like me to come, and we’ll have fun.
- Train (motivate) your block captains. Contact me for more information.
Our last (of the year) Quarterly Luncheon will be Tuesday, October 26, 11:30 – 1 p.m. at Casa Mexico Restaurant, on Fairview, east of Five Mile. RSVP’s to me are important. Officer Dave Cavanaugh will talk to us about how BPD Officers handle situations involving mental illness and addictions, and the impact on neighborhoods where these people live. Intervention may be a role Neighborhood Watch groups play in some of these situations.
The Fall/Winter Boise Bark Newsletter will be available in time for the luncheon on 10/26. I’ll bring some with me; I’ll email the pdf for those who want to email it to your neighbors, and for those who want to pick them up at Sailfish, please contact me so I can have them ready for you.
Stay safe,
Charlene Miller
Crime Prevention Unit
Boise Police Department
333 N. Sailfish Place
Boise, ID 83704
208-570-6070
cmiller@cityofboise.org
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