City of Kalamazoo issued the following announcement on Sept. 20.
The Kalamazoo Historic Preservation is continuing a project to preserve the rich history within Kalamazoo’s cemeteries. The “Grave Issues Squad”, a subcommittee of the commission, seeks to assess, clean, and repair headstones in Mountain Home Cemetery.
The Squad is looking for volunteers to help clean headstones on Saturday, September 28 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. The Squad will provide all equipment and materials, along with instructions and snacks.
The Sextons Lodge will be open for the work day and all the participants are welcome to take a short tour.
Mountain Home cemetery, located on West Main Street, contains the graves of many of the best-known figures from Kalamazoo’s history – from Gilmores and Upjohns to Curtenius and Allen.
The Grave Issues Squad takes a two-part approach to improving the condition of cemeteries. With help from volunteers, they first inventory, photograph and assess the condition of each stone. Then, based on the findings of the assessments, they plan cleaning and repairs.
During Historic Preservation Month in May 2018, the group assessed Section 15 of the cemetery, located on the north end near Forbes Street. This year, while a cloud-based, smartphone enabled inventory program is created to finish the inventory, the Grave issues Squad is planning a round of headstone cleaning in Section J – near West Main Street between the two driveways.
Original source can be found here.
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