40 AUGUST 2, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES 110TH ANNIVERSARY WWW.QNS.COM
GREAT PEOPLE
Kiwanis president says Glendale is a ‘wonderful place to serve’
BY RYAN KELLEY
When it comes to serving the
local community, Kiwanis
Club of Glendale President
Kerrie Hansen said that “it’s in our
genes.”
A native of Middle Village and
Glendale, Hansen said that her parents
were always involved in the Knights of
Columbus, Moose Lodge and Kiwanis
and imparted the values of service in
her at a young age. As she nears the
end of her one-year term as president,
Hansen said that carrying on her
family’s legacy of service has given
her many rewarding experiences.
“I think Glendale is a wonderful
place to grow up as well as a wonderful
place to serve, it’s
one of the nicest communities
around,” Hansen said. “Kiwanis
always did good work, I was always
impressed with their accomplishments,
and it’s one of the best things
I ever did.”
Founded on Sept. 10, 1953, the Glendale
Kiwanis is approaching its 65th
anniversary, and Hansen is only the
second woman to serve as its president.
During Hansen’s term, the club has
emphasized the importance of helping
the local food pantries with donations
and equipment upgrades.
Hansen also noted that the Glendale
Kiwanis has accomplished many
impressive service goals throughout
its history, and the Ridgewood Times
has been there to cover many of them.
The club started the oldest Halloween
festival in the city, various clubs and initiatives
to help local youth, the elderly
and people with special needs, donated
supplies to local schools and much more.
“If I could sum up what it means it’s
probably the camaraderie, and we
reach out one children at a time or one
person at a time and we do great things
with many hands,” Hansen said.
When it came time to prepare
for her presidential term, Hansen
said, the Times was a crucial part
of her research. She was able to sift
through historical archives and read
through old programs and learn
about what Kiwanis had done in the
past, she said.
Hansen added that she has seen the
paper play an important role in the
club’s regular communication with
the neighborhood.
“There’s no other paper that has the
outreach you do in the community,”
Hansen said. “People not even living
here still get it. Kiwanis has been very
lucky to have a paper that has such
loyalty associated with it.”
Going forward, Hansen said the
club will continue to build relationships
in the community and learn to
serve its changing needs as it evolves.
Though she will no longer be president
soon, she hopes to continue being a
Kiwanian for the rest of her life, and
she hopes it will “continue being as
fruitful as it is today.”
A Ridgewood civic leader born to help the community
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Paul Kerzner has spent all of
his 67 years on Earth calling
Ridgewood home. Growing up
at the 69th Street home, where he’s
lived all his life, he knew early on the
community was something special.
“It was a great neighborhood to
grow up in, and when I got old enough
to make decisions about where to live
permanently, I knew there was no
reason why I couldn’t duplicate that
life as an adult,” he said.
But Kerzner came of age in Ridgewood
at a time when New York City
was on the brink of the abyss. Urban
decay afflicted the community’s
next door neighborhood, Bushwick,
during the late 1960s and well into the
1970s. As the middle class fl ew out of
Bushwick, the neighborhood began
a downward spiral into a neglected
housing stock that begot crime and
arson.
At the time, some feared the decay
would eventually spread into Ridgewood
— but Kerzner and a few determined
others resolved not to let that
happen.
He became involved in various
civic causes and got to know three
civic leaders who would serve as his
greatest mentors: Sol Levy, then-Assemblywoman
Rosemary Gunning
and Carl Clemens, then publisher of
the Ridgewood Times.
“I felt like I was one of the Jedi and I
had three Yodas, and they all trained
me,” Kerzner recalled. “It wasn’t formal
training, but they knew exactly
what they were doing, and they took
me around and explained why and
how the neighborhood worked.”
Kerzner has since made community
improvement, both in Ridgewood and
beyond, his north star. He helped to
form the Greater Ridgewood Restoration
Corporation, which promoted
housing improvements and other
programs to keep the neighborhood
viable and vibrant. He also became
part of Con Edison’s Renaissance program,
which rebuilt and revitalizes
multi-family housing units across
the city.
Currently, Kerzner continues his
decades-long service to the Ridgewood
Property Owners and Civic Association
(he’s served several terms as the
civic group’s president) and with the
Ridgewood Local Development Corporation,
which is dedicated toward
promoting vibrant businesses along
Myrtle Avenue and throughout the
community.
Over the years, Kerzner and the
many organizations of which he’s
been involved has worked with the
Ridgewood Times on myriad issues
including one of his favorite causes:
the planting of street trees throughout
Ridgewood. In the early 1970s, the
neighborhood streets had few curbside
trees to speak of.
“Now this neighborhood has a canopy,”
Kerzner said. “There are trees
that are big enough to shield the entire
block. The last survey we did found
that the amount of trees to be planted
is going to be about one-half of what
we normally do, because we don’t have
many spots left . We’re coming to the
point of saturation, and that’s great.”
Glendale Kiwanis President Kerrie Maher-Hansen (center) with two fellow
Kiwanians: Bill Maher (left), her father, and David Fitzgerald
Paul Kerzner is pictured with then-President Bill Clinton and
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez in this 1999 photo