In memory of Hunter’s Green resident Patrick Strom, the second annual “Trick’s Kicks Golf Tournament” will again be held at Heritage Isles Country Club (located at 10630 Plantation Bay Dr. off Cross Creek Blvd.) on Saturday, October 17. The tournament is working to raise money to purchase and donate quality sneakers (“kicks”) to less-fortunate kids in the Tampa Bay area.
Patrick (who was called “Trick” for short) was a Wharton High grad who was tragically killed in a single-vehicle car accident in June 2012 in Hunter’s Green. Since then, the Strom family and their friends and supporters have started a nonprofit organization to give back to the community with one of Patrick’s favorite hobbies, collecting athletic shoes.
But, instead of collecting Nike’s for themselves, the charity gives them away to kids in need. The golf tournament is a major way Trick’s Kicks raises the funds to purchase the footwear through Pinellas Park-based Gulfshore Sports.
Last year, about 60 golfers participated in the first-ever “Trick’s Kicks” Memorial Golf Tourney, which helped the nonprofit raise about $7,000. The money went toward buying more shoes and establishing an endowment scholarship in Patrick’s memory at nearby St. Leo University in Dade City.
“If we make $3,000-4,000 this year, we’ll be happy,” says Patrick’s father Dick. “We’re on our way.”
Registration for the tournament is open now. Check-in and last minute registration (which won’t accept credit or debit cards) will begin at 7:30 a.m., with an 8:30 a.m. shotgun start. A $100 donation covers greens fees, a cart, range balls, lunch and entrance into the hole-in-one, longest drive and closest-to-the-pin contests. The tournament also will feature door prizes, a raffle and silent auction.
Dick explains that Trick’s Kicks just finished a Back-to-School donation to Everyday Blessings (a shelter for kids taken from the parents because of abuse and other reasons), giving away 35 pairs of new Nikes to underprivileged kids. Five pairs of kicks also were given away to five children at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (located on Cross Creek Blvd.), where the Stroms attend services.
“The smiles on the kids’ faces,” Dick explains. “They always look just like Patrick when he’d get a new pair of shoes.”
Dick says that Patrick’s closet, which remains exactly the same as the last time he used it, still is stacked with shoe boxes.
“He was a big Nike shoe fanatic,” Dick says. “He’d wait in line all night for a new pair to be released.”
Dick says that he plans to continue the golf tournaments until he is too old to do so. While the tournaments may be temporary, the $10,000 St. Leo endowment scholarship is not.
“The scholarship will keep his memory alive forever,” Dick says proudly.
Although it’s been more than three years since his passing, Dick says that the family’s pain remains.
“It never goes away, but we learn to cope with it,” he says.
For more info, please visit TricksKicks.com.
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