Chester’s National Night Out a big draw for families

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC

While rain threatened late in the afternoon, Chester instead was graced with beautiful weather and a large turnout for its National Night Out on Tuesday night. The event took place at the Pinnacle recreation area and although it can be hard to count people in a venue that’s so spread out, at 6 p.m. there were more than 100 cars parked there.

This is the 40th anniversary of the National Night Out program, started as an “annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie,” according to the National Association of Town Watch, which sponsors the event. Chester is one of seven municipalities in Vermont that participates on the first Tuesday in August each year.

Although the event was started as a way to build relationships between communities and their police departments, Police Chief Tom Williams told The Telegraph that Chester is focusing on an integrated public safety function. So, in addition to police, the fire and ambulance departments had a large presence there. And on Tuesday evening, there were many local service organizations also present including the Chester-Andover Family Center, Neighborhood Connections and the Whiting Library.

While volunteers cooked hot dogs and spun cotton candy, kids and their parents hit the pool or took to the inflated slide. Southern Vermont Astronomy Group brought telescopes for people to safely look at the sun in detail and the Rust and Ruin band played hits from the past.

Williams said the town would like to transition the national event to a “Chester night out” on a different night with the focus directly on public safety. By moving the date, Williams believes that more resources would be available to the event. He pointed to the DHART helicopter ambulance visiting last year. “We can’t ask them to come two years in a row when there are other towns asking for the same thing,” said Williams.

He sees a “mini-fair” with wider participation from local crafts people and others but still with “a public safety focus.”

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