Monday kicked off a week of National Night Out events all over the country. Southeast Wisconsin has many community-police awareness-raising events planned. One of the first was in Milwaukee's District 6 neighborhood.
"We're gonna have a great fun night. We love coming here with our grandma and it's really fun," said Sofia Swamp.
Ginger Grabner has lived in Milwaukee's Wedgewood neighborhood for 20 years. She brought her grandkids out to socialize and mingle.
"We really appreciate everything in the neighborhood. It's a beautiful neighborhood to live in and I'm proud," said Grabner.
Many neighbors met each other for the first time.
"It seems like so many times we're in our houses and we're busy and doing things and I don't get to meet the people in the entire neighborhood. I only meet the people right next door to me so this is fun everyone's coming out," said Laura Barker.
National Night Out is about neighbors coming together and it's about meeting firefighters, sheriff's deputies and police officers.
"Some kids grew up with not interacting with the police and events like this we come outside to them show them that we're friendly that we are their friends that we are here to help them out," said Sgt. Salvador Hernandez of the Milwaukee Police.
A night like this goes a long way.
"People sometimes get afraid to go out at night and this takes some of that away," said Judy Miller.
Click here to learn more about National Night Out visit.
