ATHOL — North Quabbin Cruisers will hold its weekly Cruise Nite on Wednesday, Sept. 20, but this one will be a little different.
This one will be designated as Public Safety Appreciation Night as a way to honor local police officers, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, first responders, and dispatchers.
Members of the Massachusetts State Police’s Athol barracks and the police and fire departments from Athol, Orange, New Salem, Warwick, Wendell, Erving, Petersham, Phillipston and Royalston will have their vehicles on display at the Athol Market Basket parking lot, with other departments possibly joining in this particular Cruise Nite.
The event is free and open to the public. It starts at 5 p.m.
Northeast Houndsman teams, the Royalston search and rescue team and the Orange Police K-9 team will be on hand for demonstrations.
“(Emergency personnel) are the ones we rely on, and they don’t get the recognition they deserve. They really don’t,” Cindy Houle, secretary of North Quabbin Cruisers, said. “All we see are these bad things in the news. They don’t get enough appreciation.”
Houle explained there was a fantastic turnout at Public Safety Appreciation Night in July 2016 and North Quabbin Cruisers tried to replicate that this year. This year’s event wasn’t advertised particularly well and rain began to fall as soon as it started. Houle said K-9 demonstrations were still held for those in attendance, though she felt more could be done.
“We just felt really bad. … We said, ‘These guys need a better showing than this, so we’re going to book another one’,” she said. “When everybody runs away from an emergency, they have to run in. They’re like our military.”
Houle said the emergency vehicles will be on display in a way that will make it easy for them to exit the parking lot if an emergency is called in.
Classic and antique cars and motorcycles are on display every Wednesday from 5 to 8 p.m. Most Cruise Nites this summer have had more than 175 vehicles on display, Houle said.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or
413-772-0261, ext. 258.
On Twitter: @DomenicPoli