NBA Coach Steve Kerr, Kerr Family to be Awarded ANCA-WR 2016 Humanitarian Award

LOS ANGELES, Calif.—The Armenian National Committee of America Western Region (ANCA-WR) announced that Golden State Warriors head coach and six-time National Basketball Association (NBA) champion Steve Kerr and the Kerr family will be honored with the 2016 ANCA-WR Humanitarian Award. The award will be given in recognition of their exemplary work through three generations—starting with the Near East Relief during and after the Armenian Genocide and continuing through the present time.

NBA Coach Steve Kerr and the Kerr Family will be Awarded with the ANCA-WR 2016 Humanitarian Award

The Kerr family will accept the award at the Gala Banquet on Oct. 16 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles and a special video presentation by Coach Kerr will be shared with attendees.

Kerr’s grandparents, the late Dr. Stanley E. Kerr and his wife Elsa Reckman Kerr, were instrumental in establishing the Near East Relief, the unprecedented American campaign of international humanitarian assistance which saved and sustained hundreds of thousands of Armenian Genocide survivors from 1915-1930.

In 1919, Stanley Kerr, who was a junior officer with the United States Medical Corps, transferred to Marash, in central Anatolia, where he headed the American relief operations and assisted thousands of Armenians left behind by the French. In 1922, he met his wife Elsa in Marash, where she worked as a schoolteacher. They later married in Beirut, where they ran a Near East Relief orphanage for Armenian children at Nahr Ibrahim, Lebanon.

Eleven members of the Near East Relief in Marash, 1921. Stanley Kerr is pictured in the top row, first from the left.

In 1925, Stanley Kerr earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, a field where he distinguished himself, and returned to Lebanon to chair the Department of Biochemistry of the American University of Beirut. In 1965, while Elsa served as dean of women, Stanley retired with the rank of Distinguished Professor and was awarded the Order of Merit from the Republic of Lebanon.

Dr. Stanley Kerr passed away in December 1976 and left as part of his legacy, The Lions of Marash: Personal Experiences with American Near East Relief, 1919-1922 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1973), a memoir documenting his eye-witness accounts of the Armenian Genocide.

“I was aware of my grandparents running an orphanage in Marash and eventually finding Beirut through their travels. I have a great deal of pride in knowing how much they helped,” explained Coach Kerr.

The legacy of Dr. Stanley and Elsa Kerr was passed down to their children and grandchildren, who have continued to live by the humanitarian values of their parents and grandparents. Their oldest son was the late Malcolm H. Kerr, who was born in Lebanon in 1931 and married his wife Ann Zwicker Kerr there. They became the parents to four children of their own, including Coach Steve Kerr and his older brother John Kerr, who continues his grandparents’ mission by serving on the current board of the Near East Foundation. Their daughter Susan van de Ven used letters from her grandparents as the basis of her thesis at Oberlin College, later presenting it at the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem on the occasion of the 1986 commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.

Many in the Armenian community are familiar with Professor Malcolm Kerr, a renowned scholar of Middle Eastern Studies, who served as President of the American University of Beirut and became an expert on the Lebanese Civil War and regional issues with which the Armenian community is well familiar. Professor Kerr was tragically assassinated in Beirut in 1984. His wife Ann returned to the United States and is currently the coordinator of the Fulbright Program at UCLA.

Growing up in Beirut surrounded by Armenian friends and colleagues of his grandparents and great-grandparents and becoming intimately familiar with the consequences of the Armenian Genocide have shaped Coach Kerr’s perspective. As he describes his strong connection toward Armenians and lamenting that not many people know about the Armenian Genocide, Kerr says, “I feel like an honorary member of the Armenian community through my family.”

“The Kerr family’s altruism, sacrifice, and activism with the Near East Relief exemplifies the relentless work of the American people and the United States to save the Armenians from annihilation during the Armenian Genocide,” said ANCA-WR Board Member Raffi Kassabian.

The ANCA Western Region launched the “America We Thank You: An Armenian Tribute to Near East Relief” campaign in March, 2014, to recognize the outpouring of generosity by the American people in the immediate aftermath of the Armenian Genocide and to highlight the efforts of Near East Relief in rescuing and providing assistance to hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children who were victims of the genocide.

The Kerr family at home in the Pacific Palisades, summer 1984. Left to right: Steve, Ann, John, Susan, Andrew (Photo courtesy of Ann Kerr)

In the last month, the organization also announced that it will honor California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson with the Man of the Year Award, Varoujan Koundkajian (posthumously) with the Legacy Award, and Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian with the Legislator of the Year Award.

The 2016 ANCA-WR Annual Gala Banquet will be held on Oct. 16. The main event will begin at 4:30 p.m. with cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and a silent auction. A three-course dinner will follow at 6 p.m. accompanied by a powerful program and presentation of awards.

Individuals interested in attending and sponsoring the Annual Gala Banquet are encouraged to purchase tickets online at www.ancawrgala.org or call (818) 839-1918. To obtain corporate sponsorship information visit www.ancawr.org/gala/sponsorship or call (818) 500-1919. For up to the minute updates on the event follow ANCA Western Region on social media: facebook.com/ANCAWesternRegion, Twitter and Instagram: ANCA_WR

The ANCA-WR Gala Banquet represents the single largest annual gathering of Armenian American public policy leaders throughout the western United States, and is attended by over 1,000 prominent Members of Congress, state legislators and officials, community leaders, and many of the organization’s strongest activists and generous donors from California, Nevada, Arizona, and throughout the western United States.

The ANCA-WR is the largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.