Geneva’s 1st National Night Out offers fun, fellowship, pizza – and paint

Geneva Police Officers Matthew Adam and Cassandra Parola were in charge of the paint.

There was purple and yellow, blue and white, green, orange and pink washable tempera paint set out in little bowls, and Adam’s and Parola’s job was to use foam brushes to spread them on hands.

[ See more photos from Geneva's first National Night Out ]

All kinds of hands. Little ones, big ones, old ones, young ones, left ones, right ones.

Geneva’s first National Night Out Tuesday, held in the parking lot of Burgess Field at Geneva High School, included a chance for people to put their painted handprints on a police car – a kind of universal symbol of humanity. And in this case, it was also encouraged and legal vandalism of a police car.

Geneva residents Meaghan and Matthew Schmidt and their son, Rooney, 4, each got their left hands painted: Meaghan got pink, Matthew got green and Rooney chose blue.

They touched their hands to the side of a police car, then together on the hood.

“I thought it was so sweet for the community to come together with police officers,” Meaghan Schmidt said.

A smiling Rooney showed his Geneva seal temporary tattoo on the back of his right hand.

Attendees got to see and touch police cars, fire trucks, the huge toothed bucket of an earth-moving back hoe, see a drone soaring in action and pet comfort dogs – Geneva police’s newest member Tommy and a visiting Bernese mountain dog, Rosie Mae.

Community Service Officer Brad Koontz stood cooling off in the shade with Tommy, a golden retriever, wearing his Geneva vest. Tommy rolled over next to Rosie Mae, who was wearing a Healing Hearts Comfort Dogs vest.

Handler Brenda Satelli, sat in the grass next to the 103-pound Rosie Mae, and the dog rolled over on her back for a belly scratch. Satelli said she also handles Rosie Mae’s brother, Gus, as part of the East Aurora District 131 Paws program.

Geneva Assistant City Administrator Benjamin McCready was in charge of the city’s version of Bozo buckets: three blue recycling totes as targets for tennis balls. The prize was a free parkway tree.

McCready said city residents pay $150 and the city pays the rest to plant parkway trees, but for this game, the resident fee is waived.

Cali Wronkiewicz’s son Carlson, 8, and daughter Ellie, 6, won a free tree. McCready collected the family’s name and address on his clipboard and handed Wronkiewicz a flier with 10 tree choices.

“Wow,” she said.

The city’s event was among several in Kane County held on the first Tuesday of August.

National Night Out, a community-building campaign that started in 1984, seeks to promote partnerships between police and the community with the goal of making neighborhoods safer.