National Night Out, an annual, nationwide goodwill event held by law enforcement, took place in Massapequa's John J. Burns Park on Tuesday, and members of the community came out to rub elbows with the men and women of the Seventh Precinct.

According to retired police officer Michael Williams, National Night Out is intended to strengthen the bonds between the police and the citizens they serve.

"A National Night Out is something they run throughout the entire United States, on the first Tuesday of August," he said. "It's to make people aware of the police department and what they're doing out there in the community."

Police officer Catherine Piccininni said that point of the event was to teach residents the proper precautions to keep safe.

"We handing out information from the police department," she said. "Anything to make people aware of the situations around them; texting while driving, ATM safety, child identification kits, and more."

Helping to hand out the safety literature to the crowd gathering for the New York Tenors Music Under the Stars event being held the same evening in Burns park were several Nassau County Explorers, who, according to officer Williams, are youngsters who volunteer their time to aid the police.

"The Explorers are a bunch of young individuals, between 14 and 21 years of age, who are interested in helping and learning about law enforcement," he said. "It's very similar to the Boy Scouts...in fact, it's run through Learning For Life, which is the organization that runs the Boy Scouts. It gives young men interested in entering law enforcement a better idea of what police officers does."

Nick Krebs, 17, of Massapequa has been an Explorer for a little over a year now, having joined in tenth grade.

"It's been incredible," he said. "All the activities we do, all the stuff we do with the police officers, all the people that we get to meet...it's a great program."

Shawn Murphy of Plainedge joined the Explorers when he was 14. Now 18, he sees a bright future for himself as a police officer.

"Being an Explorer gives you a very deep, inside look at law enforcement," he said. "One of the things we do is we're put into fake role-play scenarios, to see how we would respond, and the police grade us."

Drug Free Massapequa, a community awareness group who preach the dangers of substance abuse, was also present at the event. Their co-founder and president, Janice Talento, was happy to report that their hard work was paying off.

"Nassau County is waking up to the problem," she said. "People from Syosset, people from Jericho, people from Hicksville are all contacting us now, because they realize that everyone has to help each other if we're going to beat drugs."

Sarah Marshall had just gotten a free tote bag, courtesy of Drug Free Massapequa.

"I like the idea of this event," she said. "Getting people more in touch with local police, and the whole 'drugs are bad' thing. These are important messages for kids."