PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Roxborough High School dedicated a garden Friday in memory of Nicolas Elizalde, a freshman football player who was gunned down near the school three years ago.
As Meredith Elizalde looked on, a plaque was unveiled at the place near Roxborough High where her son was shot and killed after a football scrimmage on Sept. 27, 2022.
“I lay right here with Nick. And I was so blessed to be able to hold him as he exited this world,” she said. Meredith was in her car waiting to pick up her 14-year-old son when gunshots rang out. She got out of the car and ran toward the shots — “I couldn’t get him, but I held him and I felt him leave. But I was holding him. He wasn’t alone,” said Meredith in 2022, just days after the shooting.
There was already a mural with his uniform No. 62 on the side of the school building. Now, there’s a garden.
“We knew that this was a space that needed to be memorialized in a way to complement the mural with the colors, and just, life,” said Roxborough Principal Kristin Williams Smalley. “This is how you change your community. How can we do that? By digging our hands into the ground and connecting to the space.”
Photo credit Mike DeNardo/KYW Newsradio
Assistant Principal Julian Saavedra said perennials were intentionally included.
“The idea of death and rebirth is really prevalent. And with the perennial, they grow, they live out their life, they die, but then they come back again.”
Meredith said the space doesn’t belong to the moment her son died; it belongs to the students who are still living in it.
“It’s a testament to, again, the resilience of the community and just how Nicolas impacted the world in the short time that he was with us,” Smalley said.
Four other teens were injured in the shooting that evening. Six people have been arrested in Nicolas’s death. Two have pleaded guilty.
Featured Image Photo Credit: Mike DeNardo/KYW Newsradio
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