Homeowners around Antigua Park next to Veritas Elementary School are pulling out all the stops for their first-ever National Night Out block party.

The nationwide annual event, designed to serve as a vehicle for residents to get rid of crime in their neighborhood, will be held Tuesday, Aug. 2, from 6 to 9 p.m. At the Antigua Night Out block party, there will be a slew of attractions for the entire family in addition to the usual barbecue food offerings. There will be pony rides, a jump house, sno-cones, a cotton candy maker, three-legged races, a basketball shoot-out, and balloon toss games.

All these will take place in the neighborhood around Antigua Park, said Amy Glass who is one of the three women, along with their families, spearheading and coordinating this anti-crime extravaganza that is a first for the roughly 40 homes in the residential subdivision south of the Highway 120 Bypass and the Bass Pro Shops at the Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley. Working with Glass are Hope Johnson and Marisela. The three went as far as using their own out-of-pocket money to fund some of the attractions at the block party. Glass, a registered nurse who is a wife and the mother of five children, for instance forked over the money to bring a pony and a horse to the neighborhood party.

In addition to the fun activities and attractions, there will be prizes that will be given away as well, Glass said.

She said the three families involved in organizing the block party decided to launch it for the first time this year “to get to know everybody in the neighborhood, and what better way to do that” than to get neighbors together during the annual National Night Out event, she said.

“We thought it’d be fun,” she added.

They even contacted the national headquarters of National Night Out back East which, in turn, sent them official flyers to distribute in their neighborhood.

For the duration of the three-hour evening block party, a portion of the street in front of Antigua Park will be blocked off, Glass said. She said Officer Hensley of the Manteca Police Department has given them official yellow tapes to cordon off the portion of Antigua Lane that will be temporarily blocked off.

“This is the first time we’re having a neighborhood block party so we’re very excited,” Glass said.

 She and the two other families that are helping organize the block party are hoping that this event will result in the formation of a Neighborhood Watch group in their residential area. Glass said the six families living in the short lane where her home is located already know each other well, but not the others in their immediate vicinity. They are hoping the block party will be a vehicle for them to get to know their other neighbors.

“We thought (the block party) would be a focal point to meet everybody,” as well as to jumpstart the formation of a Neighborhood Watch group, Glass said.

“So we will be addressing that” the night of the National Night Out party, she said.

And as far as the block party is concerned, this will be just the beginning for their neighborhood.

“We’re hoping to make this a yearly thing and make it bigger and better every year,” Glass said.