Local Kids Clean Up The Streets On National Night Out

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Armed and ready with gloves, trash bags, and plenty of smiles, one group of kids had a mission.

They are cleaning up their Brentwood streets one piece of trash at a time.

"I'm going to throw it away and also make sure no one gets another firework around here," says one child as he picks up an old firework.

A group of about 100 children from the Boys & Girls Club off of West 25th Street went throughout the Brentwood neighhorhood picking up trash for National Night Out.

It's something that sisters Megan and Morgan Turner were more than happy to do.

"Me and her are twins but you can't tell because I'm a little taller than her," said 11-year-old Megan Turner.

"It's important to clean up so it can make our community safe and so people won't have to be smoking and doing drugs and stuff and to get into accidents," said 11-year-old Morgan Turner.

Monday afternoon, just one street over from the Boys & GirlsClub, an armed robbery and shooting took place on West 24th Street.

Crime like that has has event organizers wanting people to take an interest in their neighborhood.

"The demographics of this community, that's the sort of violence they face day in and day out. We want our kids to be out there showing them that we won't accept that in our community," said Darby Stubberfield with the Boys & Girls Club on West 25th Street.

"We want this to be a safe community and we don't want this community to be known for bad stuff. All the time they talk about bad stuff. We want it to be a good community," said Megan Turner.

It's the mission these little guys are following while on the road to building a brighter future.

This year marks the 25th National Night Out. This was one of 100 events taking place around the city.

Last year, there were more than 34 million people who participated in National Night Out across the country.

The purpose of the event is to stir up better communication between police and neighbors, crime prevention awareness and the organization of more neighborhood watch programs.Currently there are 820 Neighborhood Watch programs in Jacksonville.