Patrick Kerr – Irish in Philly

People

A Skateboarder’s Dream Come True

m/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/pearseandlizkerr-300×198.jpg” alt=”Pearse and Liz Kerr” width=”300″ height=”198″ /> Pearse and Liz Kerr at Friday’s dedication ceremony and groundbreaking of the new skateboard park.

It took 12 long years, but at last Patrick Kerr’s dream of a dedicated skateboard park has been realized.

Patrick, the son of Liz and Pearse Kerr and a student at Roman Catholic High School, was an avid skateboarder and a dedicated advocate for hassle-free places where he and his friends could pursue their passion. The city’s refusal to allow skateboarding in Love Park—a well-known mecca for devotees of the sport—drew him into the fray, and he never shied away from it.

In 2002, Patrick was skateboarding on a street in Jenkintown when he was hit by a tractor trailer, and killed. He was 15.

On a breezy, overcast Friday afternoon, Patrick’s parents joined dozens of skateboarders, friends, family, and local politicians to dedicate Paine’s Park, to be completed in the spring of 2013, and designed with skateboarders’ moves in mind. It’s a 2.5-acre parcel at Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, in the shadow of the Philadelphia Art Museum.

Liz Kerr, an early advocate for skateboarders since 2000, first as part of an ad hoc group called the Skaters’ Defense Lobby, and later on when she helped form a nonprofit activist group called Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund, was thrilled. She remembers how difficult it was at the time for skateboarders to get their point across.

“We would go to City Council meetings and lobby—first for Love Park, to let the kids be in Love Park,” she says. “That was when the restrictions were coming in, and kids were getting citations and being arrested. So we formed this lobby. And then, when there was no hope for Love Park to be open, it morphed more into, ‘OK, let’s get the next site.’”

And from those humble origins, Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund got its start.

Josh Nims, one of the founders of the Skaters’ Defense Lobby and, later, Franklin’s Paine, recalls well Liz Kerr’s early involvement with the cause.

“I’ve been with it longer than anybody else, but at the beginning I had a group of four people, including Liz, who were at the core of the initial push you need for a good idea,” Nims says. “She has a passion for justice and fairness in all things. She saw inequality in how skateboarders were being treated. She had a personal stake in it because of her family. She really jumped on board with me to advocate for the rights of skateboarders back in 2000.”

With Patrick’s death, Nims understood and admired Liz Kerr’s continued commitment to the cause.

“Everybody had their own stake in a thing like this. Her stake in it is big. She had something extremely tragic that she was willing to fight through, and continue to fight for something that must have been a constant reminder for her, and yet she stayed with it and continued to help any way she could. I consider her whole family wonderful personal friends that we made through this journey.”

Liz Kerr feels certain her son would have been pleased that all of his hard work is culminating in a primo spot for skateboarders.

“The location is beautiful. If you look in one direction, there’s the Art Museum,” she says. “If you look in the other direction, there’s the river. A little further down, the skyline. I don’t think you can find a more beautiful site than here. I’m so happy about that.”

News, People

Get Your St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast and Help a Great Cause

When Patrick Kerr passed away in 2002 at the age of 15, he had only just finished his freshman year at Roman Catholic. But, says his mother Liz Kerr, Patrick had already set down deep roots in Roman. On St. Patrick’s Day, his family will pay tribute to his memory by hosting an Irish breakfast at the Center City restaurant Fado, with proceeds to benefit a scholarship fund in his name at the big school on North Broad.

“He really loved Roman,” says Kerr, “so we try to keep the connection to that school.”

The Kerrs are already well known for helping to establish another—and altogether unique—scholarship. The Patrick Kerr Skateboard Scholarship helps defray college tuition for high-achieving students who are also notable advocates for skateboarding. Patrick himself had already established quite a name for himself as an activist on behalf of skateboarding. In a tragic irony, the young man slipped under the wheels of a truck while skateboarding in Jenkintown.

The Kerrs are well-known Hibernians—Liz and her husband helped found AOH Division 25 for Cardinal Dougherty alumni eight years ago. Liz is on the Philadelphia board. Consequently, the Fado benefit is an AOH-managed affair all the way, and the two annual student beneficiaries of $1,000 scholarships are traditionally Hibernians themselves, or from Hibernian families. Most of the winners, she says, have come from the Patrick Kerr Division of the AOH at Roman Catholic.

“This is the fourth year, maybe the fifth year in a row, for the benefit,” says Liz. “It was done through John Reilly and Tom McCourt at AOH Division 1. They talked to Fado about it. Fado has just been so good to us these past few years. They’re even talking about going national with it, to try to institute a fund-raising breakfast in all of their restaurants.”

Local AOH volunteers also help raise money for the scholarship throughout the rest of the year, with events such as beef and beer benefits and a big half-ball tournament. And some funds come from abroad. “We get donations from Belfast,” she says. “My husband (Pearse) is from Belfast and his brother has a pub called the Farmer’s Inn, and they do fund-raising as well.”

But the showcase fund-raiser is the St. Patrick’s morning traditional breakfast at Fado. “It does really well,” Liz says. They turn over everything. Anyone who comes in for the breakfast, they turn it over to Roman; it’s funded a lot of kids now.”

Unlike a lot of the events on St. Patrick’s Day, which can be raucous, beer-soaked affairs even in the early hours of the day, the breakfast at Fado (15th & Locust) is comparatively subdued—and the people who dine on traditional Irish delicacies like it that way.

“It’s just such a nice way to start St. Patrick’s Day,” says Liz. “It’s really low key, more traditional, like what you’d find in Ireland. The fireplace is going, and the music is quiet in the background.”

You can get your fill of sausage and eggs and help a good cause. The breakfast starts at 8 and lasts ‘til 11. The price is $15.99.

March 11, 2009 by Jeff Meade