Two months to the day after ground was broken for the renovation of a vacant lot in Pen Lucy, the newly completed Kent Memorial Garden will be dedicated in a ceremony Saturday, June 28.

The transformed lot on the corner of Cator Avenue and Old York Road is named in honor of an Ednor Gardens resident, Kent Johnson, who died at age 34 in a drive-by shooting in Pen Lucy in August 1992.

According to Rebuilding Together Baltimore, the organization that coordinated the work on the lot, the community will gather at 10 a.m.

Elected officials including Mayor Sheila Dixon, City Council president Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and City Council members Mary Pat Clarke and Bill Henry have been invited to attend.

The lot-turned-park is the most visible evidence of the work done by Rebuilding Together Baltimore, and is one of the three projects in the community funded by the cable TV network Home and Garden Television as part of its "Change the World, Start at Home" campaign.

HGTV and Rebuilding Together Baltimore also collaborated on a makeover of Pen Lucy resident Ethel Gaither's house and on a facelift for the building that houses the headquarters of the Community Mediation Center.

The park is the final piece of the overall project. Gates now stand at the entrance to the park, and fencing around the perimeter has been replaced.

Volunteers planted rose bushes and hostas. A walking path now winds through the park, lined with blue granite markers inscribed with inspirational messages about anti-violence.

One stone at the entrance to the park reads, "This path is dedicated to the youth of Pen Lucy. Walk along it in peace."

The inscriptions on the stones were submitted by young people in the community and range from their own words to quotes from famous people.

Emma Worrell, who lives next door to the lot and whose son was a friend of Johnson, tended the lot as a memorial since 1994. She stopped recently after learning that the lot would be renovated.

Tammy Johnson, the mother of Kent Johnson, for whom the park is named, said she thinks the memorial is wonderful.

"It's certainly a fitting memorial," she said. "I've never seen anything else like it."

According to a 1992 story in The Sun, police at the time said Johnson was an innocent bystander, talking with friends in front of an Old York Road carryout near the new park when a van drove by and its occupants fired at least 30 rounds from semi-automatic weapons and a shotgun, killing Johnson.

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