Events

The Downtown Resident’s Association (DRA) is organizing a community-wide “National Night Out” (NNO) celebration on October 5, 2010 at Hemisfair park for downtown San Antonio with Mayor Castro providing introductory remarks. In its 27th year, National Night out is a crime/drug prevention event sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch. Neighborhoods across the country come together to celebrate community and foster relationships to prevent crime. Nationally, the event had over 36 million participants last year, including citizens, law enforcement agencies, civic groups, businesses, neighborhood organizations and local officials from over 15,000 communities from all 50 states, U.S. territories, Canadian cities and military bases worldwide.

While DRA has hosted National Night Out celebrations in the past, they have been smaller in scope. Last year’s event was held at the Radius Building and was mainly promoted to the one hundred plus members of the DRA. This year, organizers hope to reach beyond the membership base to all downtown residents, including those in nearby neighborhoods such as LaVaca and King William.

The plan for this year’s celebration is to ask all downtown communities to depart from pre-decided meeting spots and walk to the arch of HemisFair Park so that all participants arrive at 7pm. From the arch, the group will walk, en masse, through the park to the base of The Tower Of The Americas. Participants will enjoy a free concert from the rising local rock band, The Next Day. The Chart House Restaurant will have food and drinks, at the base of the tower, available for purchase. "We are hoping for a large turnout for this event", says Joan Korte, President of the DRA. "We want to show everyone that we have neighborhood spirit when it comes to crime prevention in our downtown."

Ken Hack, a Downtown Resident Association Board Member and head planner for NNO added, “We also encourage families to bring food, beverages, blankets and chairs with them to enjoy the music. We plan to have a guest speaker to kick off the event and also have some of our city officials and favorite mascots visit." The following are the sponsors that have teamed up with the DRA to date; The San Antonio Spurs, Chart House, Texas Star Document Services, Mackenzie Restoration, Inc and Spectrum Fitness Club. Additionally, participants are encouraged to bring a canned good to donate to the San Antonio Food Bank.

Estilos Whisky River Saloon will host an after-party for adults ages 21 and over starting at 9:30pm with happy hour drink specials.