Davis Neighbors
2011 DNNO Summary
The City of Davis, UC Davis and Associated Students of UC Davis held the 6th Annual Davis Neighbors’ Night Out on Sunday, October 9th.
The event is a block party, located in individual neighborhoods, to encourage Davis residents to meet each other with a goal of increasing communication and neighborliness. It is similar to the National Night Out event held in August. However, Davis’ event is in October to include new/returning UC Davis students. We believe that starting the academic year on a positive note will reduce the potential for misunderstandings or conflicts by opening lines of communication among all residents. This year there were 123 block parties.
Our goal this year was to get more UC Davis students attending and hosting events, and extending their hand to their neighbors. We pursued this in two ways; first get the students involved early by having events for on-campus living students, and secondly encouraging those already living in neighborhoods to host an event.
UC Davis and Tandem Properties held an event on-campus at The Colleges for all on-campus living units east of Hwy 113. They invited approximately 5,000 students. Tandem provided food and entertainment. West Village also hosted an event for their residents.
To encourage students living off campus to host an event, we developed an “incentive” package. If a UC Davis student signed up to host an event for their neighborhood, they received free food and paper products for the party, as well as a chance to win raffle prizes. ASUCD provided pizza, Target provided all the paper products, and Costco, Zipcar and the UCD Bookstore donated raffle prizes.
We had 6 UC Davis student hosted parties, 14 at Greek houses and 1 at a sport team house. In future years, we hope students will have heard about the event from attending an on-campus block party or from someone who hosted or attended one and be more comfortable attending one in their neighborhood.
The City received a $500 grant from Target for the program and Davis Food Co-op, Nugget Markets, Safeway and Savemart donated gift cards to party hosts for supplies. The Davis Enterprise continued to provide the event with excellent coverage.
In addition to our already very special guests, including the Mayor, Council members, City staff, UC Davis Chancellors and staff, Gunrock, ASUCD Senators, Police and Fire Departments, and a Unitrans double decker bus; we had the Cal Aggie Band uh! visiting parties this year.
In the past we have given a packet of general information to distribute at the event. This year, in an effort to reduce paper waste, we printed 1-set of handouts per party. All the documents were scanned and placed on the City’s website for viewing online. Documents include Neighborhood Watch information, CERT Volunteer Program, How to Host a Zero Waste Event, Cool Davis Initiative, Emergency Checklist, Natural Gas Safety, Campus/Dorm Fire Safety, Fire Exit Drills in the home, and Be Smart-Disaster Preparedness. We also provided lawn signs noting the party location, name tags, balloons, glow necklaces, Good Neighbor Initiative brochures and party reminder door hangers.
The planning of this event is a tremendous effort, it could not be done without the help of many including: DCDS staff Allan Akers; DNNO Planning Committee; Michele Reynolds, Rachel Tenedora and Janet Branum, Police Dept, and Police Officers who delivered packets at the last minute - Officer’s Helton, Cox and Lt. Doroshov. I would like to thank the Council members, City staff, and UC Davis staff and students who took time out of their Sunday to visit parties and all Davis residents that hosted a party for their neighborhood.
We received some great photos and comments, check them out below.
Stacey Winton, DCDS, Community Partnership Coordinator
City of Davis
Party Host Survey
