Dear Business and Community Partners,

The Bluffton Police Department, in conjunction with the Pandora Police Department, is once again in the planning stages for holding our 4th annual National Night Out celebration. 

This year’s event will be held on Tuesday August 1st, 2017.  The Bluffton, Beaverdam, and Pandora Fire and EMS Departments will also be participating in this event.   The Bluffton, Pandora, and Beaverdam communities are all invited to attend. 

The event will again be held at the Bluffton Community Swimming Pool from 6pm-9pm with free pool admission all day (rain date Wednesday August 2nd).  There will be food provided along with giveaways, firetruck displays and rides, face painting, bounce houses, live music, and more. 

The Bluffton Area Chamber of Commerce (www.explorebluffton.com) will once again be sponsoring fireworks to cap off the night.  For more information on National Night Out, please visit www.natw.org.

For the 2016 event, we had a great turnout with approximately 2500 people in attendance and we served approximately 2,400 hotdogs, 800 bags of chips, and 2,600 cans of pop and bottles of water.    

We are hoping to have just as many if not more people attend this year!  We are making plans to be able to serve food, drinks, and snacks for 2500 people again this year. 

To be able to continue to put this event together for the community, we will again be in need of numerous volunteers and are again seeking monetary and “in-kind” donations. 

This event is set up as a “leave your wallet at home” event and we use no tax payer money to put this on, so without the kind donations from people and organizations like you, this event wouldn’t be possible. 

If you are able to assist again this year, or want to help for the first time, checks can be made payable to “Village of Bluffton” which will allow any donations to be tax deductible. 

If you would like to make a donation by way of food, drink, or other needed items, please contact Lieutenant Oglesbee at the Bluffton Police Department and he will coordinate with you on that.  Lt. Oglesbee can be reached at 419-358-2961 ext. 110 or email [email protected]. 

If you are able to volunteer or have a group that will volunteer, please contact Sergeant Tyler Hochstetler at 419-358-2961 ext. 114 or email at [email protected]. 

Volunteers will be split into two shifts again this year with one group helping from 5pm-7pm and the next group from 7pm-9pm.  Anyone is welcome to stay and help during the whole evening if you wish. 

Please respond by July 7th if you are able to help with any type of donation this year.  This will allow us time to make more contacts if needed. 

Thank you so much for your time and we look forward to working with you to make this a wonderful night for everyone to enjoy!!

Chief Ryan Burkholder                                                                                                Lt. Matt Oglesbee