The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Smiling on Heroes’ Ground
Comedy Night with Joe Conklin to benefit Veterans Monument Site of monument to be at Miles Park on Germantown Pike
WHITEMARSH » There’s certainly nothing funny about its mission, but the Veterans Monument Foundation of Whitemarsh committee is hoping an upcoming Comedy Night will raise a lot of money for its cause.
With committee member Joe McGrath being a longtime friend of popular local comic and WIP personality Joe Conklin, it seemed only natural that Conklin would headline the show.
Set for April 20, 8 p.m., at St. Philip Neri Church cafeteria, 437 Ridge Pike, Lafayette Hill, the show is the group’s first fundraiser and is expected to go a long way in bankrolling Heroes’ Ground at Miles Park in Lafayette Hill, where in 1778, the Battle of Barren Hill was fought during the American Revolutionary War.
McGrath and Conklin have been friends since their Cardinal Dougherty High School days, McGrath said.
“Joe makes a good living as a comic and is known as the ‘man with a thousand voices’ because of the impersonations he does. I reached out to him to see if he could help us out in trying to raise money and awareness for the Whitemarsh Veterans Monument. He said sure, and then Chris Morris, a comic from Roxborough who is the son of (famed basketball coach) Speedy Morris, signed on.”
Conklin then encouraged several more comics to donate their time and talent to make the Comedy Night happen, McGrath noted.
“Joe has a real strong reputation. I know every week he appears at Parx Casino and brings in these comics who have national prominence,” added McGrath, who said that no age restriction had been formally determined but advised parents to use common-sense discretion.
St. Philip is donating the hall for the BYOB event, and food will be catered by Mission BBQ.
The evening will also feature a silent auction and raffle.
“We also have a brick program where people can purchase a brick for the monument to honor a loved one,” McGrath said.
In March, 2013, McGrath and Montgomery County Sheriff and former Whitemarsh Township Police Chief Eileen Behr presented the Whitemarsh Township Board of Supervisors with a concept for the proposed veterans monument at the corner of Germantown Pike and Joshua Road in Lafayette Hill.
With groundbreaking now planned for November, the monument will honor all those who have served and are currently serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, and will feature an area with flags representing each of the five branches of service, with stairs leading from the corner of Germantown Pike and Joshua Road to provide accessibility. Educational exhibits will provide information about the history of Whitemarsh and the surrounding area and a peace bell will enhance a pathway along Joshua Road.
“We’re just a grassroots organization that started this. Other townships have monuments to veterans but somehow we don’t. Even though we have a really rich history in Whitemarsh, especially with the Revolutionary War, we’ve never had a place to honor veterans and share that history and recognize the sacrifices that not only a veteran makes but all veterans’ families make,” said McGrath, a United States Marine Corps veteran.
“I come from a family where pretty much everybody served. My mom was born in 1939 and her father was gone from 1941 to 1945. Everybody wants to thank a veteran, but veterans’ families make huge sacrifices.”
McGrath is proud of the group’s efforts to keep veterans’ contributions alive with several programs, including the recent Speaker Series.
‘Last month for Black History Month we had an original Montford Point Marine come to speak. They’re the Jackie Robinsons of the Marine Corps; they integrated the Marine Corps,” McGrath said. “We recently had a 102-year-old woman marine, who served in World War II and we also had a Whitemarsh resident who was a truck drive during the original battle with Iraq. People don’t realize that women drove trucks in what was supposedly non-combat, although it was very much combat. We’re also in collaboration with Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, PlymouthWhitemarsh High School and AIM Academy in doing veterans interviews. It’s been a wonderful experience. To watch these high school students interview a 94- year-old veteran, to hear his stories, it’s amazing. I don’t think they ever heard any of this stuff before. So the monument is a good thing to give back to the older generation, but also for the younger generation learning about who these guys are. If it wasn’t for our Speaker Series and the monument, these kids wouldn’t be learning all this valuable history and learning how far we’ve come.”
Tickets to Comedy Night are $50 and will be available at the door or by sending a check payable to Veterans Monument Foundation of Whitemarsh, P.O. Box 616, Lafayette Hill, PA, 19444. Doors open at 7 p.m. For more information, call 484-5942888. Or visit the website at https://www.whitemarshvetmonument.org/the-memorial.