The ‘#9PMRoutine’

Valley Stream man raises awareness with memes

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Every night at 9 p.m., Mike Powers posts a meme to the largest of Valley Stream’s various community Facebook pages, encouraging his fellow residents to lock up their cars.

“I’ll continue until I run out of ideas, or I have something else to do at 9,” said Powers, who has been posting these memes on the Valley Stream News Facebook page for almost a year now.

Originally, he said, Chrissy O’Toole, the page’s administrator, posted the daily reminders. As a member of the Police Commissioner’s Community Council, she said she learned about the prevalence of thefts from cars in the Valley Stream area and decided to do something about it. According to the Nassau County Police Department, there have been almost 600 thefts from automobiles in the Valley Stream area since 2015. Many of those thieves are looking for money to buy drugs, O’Toole said.

So, when she found out about the #9PMRoutine social media campaign, which started in Florida to raise awareness and promote safety amongst residents, she decided to spread it to Valley Stream. “I thought the residents of Valley Stream would benefit from a friendly reminder,” O’Toole said.

But she quickly handed over the reigns to Powers, another Community Council member and former police officer who she said had more creative ideas.

Sometimes his memes, or images with text, are based on conversations throughout the day, and other times, he said, he would “just see a photo that fit and make my own meme.” On rare occasions, he would share a meme he saw on another Facebook page, but most most of the time, he said, his memes are original.

Powers declined to say how he makes these memes, calling it his secret, but said that making them “beats complaining about things.”