ORANGE PARK – Residents throughout the Heritage Hills community took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather on Saturday, Feb. 23. Some did yard work, while others cleaned their garages, rode …
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ORANGE PARK – Residents throughout the Heritage Hills community took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather on Saturday, Feb. 23. Some did yard work, while others cleaned their garages, rode their bicycles and took their dogs on longer-than-normal walks.
But for a group of 13, it was a perfect setting to engage their neighbors in a cause common to everyone – fighting crime.
Groups knocked on doors, shook hands and passed out fliers to promote the Clay County Sheriff’s Neighborhood Engagement Team.
“Without community engagement, you become a little less connected,” said Ken Uber after hearing a pitch led by Eddie Henley, chairman of Sheriff NET and pastor of Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in Orange Park. “If you don’t care about your neighbors, why should they care about you? We need community engagement like this.”
The NET is broken into six zones around the county. The team worked Zone 1 on Saturday, an area that includes Blanding Boulevard near Constitution Drive. Residents were reminded of monthly meetings on the fourth Tuesday at the Orange Park Operations Center, 212 Blanding Blvd., and they were invited to join the organization.
The goal, Henley said, is to create a network much like Neighborhood Watch of citizens that work together to be a more formidable group to prevent crime.
“Our purpose is twofold,” Henley said. “First is to build awareness for this community, to let everyone know there is a neighborhood engagement that can make us stronger. Second is to recruit new members.”
There were five members for the first NET community walk last September. Counting members of the Heritage Hills Community Association, there were 13.
“When everyone is engaged, we’re more observant to what’s going on,” said Jeff Eckhold, NET vice chairman. “We are the eyes and ears of our own neighborhoods.”
The team was created by Sheriff Darryl Daniels to develop a partnership between his officers and the many communities that make up the county. The sheriff’s department provides education of how to implement proven crime-reducing measures.
The team has the authority to complete neighborhood complaint forms that can be forwarded to the sheriff’s office.
For Uber, he didn’t mind having his quiet Saturday morning interrupted by a knock on the door.
“It’s good to see people who have faith in their lives and who care,” he said. “The middle class is shrinking because we don’t have real communities anymore.”
The NET will canvas the Greenwood neighborhood in March and will move their neighborhood walk to Tanglewood in April.
Anyone interested in joining the Sheriff’s NET can do so by visiting www.claysheriff.com’s Community Affairs Section.