Heroes Honored In Hatboro Traffic Garden Ceremony

HATBORO, PA —They are the Heroes of Hatboro.

On any given day, you can find them on borough streets, serving the community and protecting residents.

The borough celebrated these heroes during a dedication on Sunday evening of a traffic garden at the former Pennypack school.

Borough officials honored members of the Hatboro Police Department, Enterprise Fire Company, and Second Alarmers who keep the community safe.

The event also honored a fallen hero.

The borough dedicated its newly finished Traffic Garden to Sgt. James Petrik, who passed away in March 2020.

Petrik was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who had served in the infantry. For the past 21 years, Petrick was employed by the Hatboro Police Department.

Spending time with his wife, Lynn, and three sons, James, Jason, and Justin, was vitally important to Petrick, from baseball training and teaching life skills to the boys being able to have one last family vacation before his youngest son left for USMC boot camp.

His family attended the ceremony and participated in a ribbon-cutting of the garden led by Mayor Tim Schultz.

"On behalf of the Brough of Hatboro, we thank Sgt. Petrik for all he did for the Borough and our community," the borough said. "Sgt. Petrik is greatly missed and will forever be a part of Hatboro.

During the event, Montgomery County officials came out to distribute free bike helmets to children and pass out useful information about bike safety.

The borough thanked the county for choosing Hatboro for the location of the traffic garden, designing the layout, and chalking it to guide Public Works when it was painted.

The garden features scaled-down streets with intersections, stop and yield signs, painted roads, roundabouts, colorful spaces, and more. Officials say it will be used for organized safety lessons, but will also be open to the general public.

The garden was funded by a Health Services Block Grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Preventive Health and Health Services.