National Night Out Martinez 2025 was a huge success!

National Night Out Martinez 2025 was a success!

The event was the culmination of just over 9 months of planning including 15 meetings with a 8-person team who did most of the work organizing this event. Our planning team consisted of Christine Dean, a former member of the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff, Martinez Police Department Captain Ben Aldritt, Cliff Chan with Martinez CERT, Kevin Murray with Feet First Foundation, Steve Riccobono with Sound Travels Production, Jack Funk and Rochelle Badgley with the Martinez Education Foundation, Angela Rundles and Pete Sabine.

We enlisted the support of the Chief of Police, Mayor of Martinez, City Manager and City Council Members and we obtained the endorsement of the Downtown Martinez Association.

The City of Martinez provided a grant of $5,000 to apply toward the event expenses (over $9,000) as a primary sponsorship of the event.

The balance of the event expenses was covered by sponsors, including Deputy Sheriff’s Association, City of Martinez, Contra Costa Health Services, Martinez Refining Company, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union 302, NorCal Carpenters Union 152, Tony Jetland, Martinez Music Mafia, Les Schwab Tires Martinez, MCE Clean Energy, Nuvision Credit Union, Schroder Insurance Services, Mt View Sanitary District, 1st Nor Cal Credit Union, Tim Farley Dudum Real Estate, Pete Sabine & Jennifer Lucas Real Estate, 100 Club of Contra Costa, AT&T, ADT, JT’s Bistro, Krystal Endsley and donations from Republic Services and Bill’s Ace Hardware.

Our National Night Out event brought the community together with local law enforcement and first responder participants who were very grateful for this opportunity to interact with our neighbors in a positive light.

The fundraiser benefited the Martinez Education Foundation with a donation to support our local schools.

Our keynote speakers included Martinez Police Chief Andrew White, Martinez City Council Members Jay Howard, Debbie McKillop, Martinez Mayor Brianne Zorn.

The City of Martinez has a population of over 36,000 residents and is near the cities of Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill and Concord. Our event attendees came from these nearby communities as well as Martinez.

The Martinez Waterfront Park is the perfect size venue to hold all that we were having at the event including live music, food trucks, shaved ice treats, kids face painters, a children’s entertainer, a petting zoo and giant colorful kites flew over the park by Tony “the kite man” Jetland.

Free Child ID kits were distributed to attendees by Pete Sabine. Several local security companies showcased their wares and ADT, one of the national sponsors of National Night Out, provided an exhibit at our event.

Also at the event were six area First Responder agencies who brought their police vehicles, ambulance and fire trucks to the location. This included participation from Consolidated Fire, American Medical Response, Martinez Police Department, California Highway Patrol, and the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff. The Martinez Police Department brought 2 motorcycles to the event, much to the glee of the children!

The Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Search and Rescue provided a vehicle display at the event as well as with packets of information which included information concerning crime prevention specifically for children, as well as a Junior Sheriff sticker and a temporary tattoo of a Sheriff’s badge.

Our local CERT (Community Emergency Response Training) team brought their radios and yellow glow-in-the-dark safety vests to provide valuable assistance to our event by coordinating the entire parking effort during the event, which was indispensable for us.

Martinez Boy Scout Troop 429 volunteered their time to support the event. We are very grateful to CERT and Scout Troop 429 for their volunteerism.

Thank you for your support!