Honor Their Memory By Giving
By Emilie Rumble
Memorial Day… designated as a day for setting aside time to remember those who have gone before us. This day is a time for visiting the graves of loved ones, to honor them with a floral tribute, an American Flag, a prayer of thankfulness, and time for reflection.
Memorial Day is only one of the days designated for remembering the service of the brave men and women having served in the United States Armed Forces. Each year, members of American Legion Posts take time to place flags and crosses on the graves of Veterans who have been laid to rest.
As we decorate graves, there is also a time to visit with friends and family and a time to visit the donation box. The box is often times attended by volunteers for receiving donations to help with the upkeep of the cemetery. Those donations help with the cost of mowing, weeding, snow removal, tree limb removal, gravel for the road, and more. The town, rural, and family cemeteries in the area all have the same responsibilities where upkeep is concerned. The cost for mowing grows with each mowing season, as it takes hours to mow around the stones and the cost for fuel to mow increases and when it rains… the grass grows quickly and needs to be mowed again.
In recent and coming weeks, many cemetery boards are holding meetings to discuss the business of the care and upkeep of the resting places of our loved ones. Many of these cemeteries in the rural community have fence rows that need to be cleaned out, signs and headstones to be tended to, holes to be filled in, limbs to be picked up, weeds to be sprayed or pulled, gravel for the road or driveways, and I am sure much more work than can be listed.
Readers, these cemetery board members need our help… financially, physically and possibly by becoming a board member of the cemeteries where our loved ones rest and have family plots.
Honoring the memory of our loved ones by donating, in one or all of these ways, is our duty. Long time board members need your assistance in maintaining the cemeteries. You and I can make a tremendous difference in our community by honoring the memory of many… it is a time for giving.
