ASLAA Serves is excited to invite you to participate in another round of volunteering with Washington Park Cemetery in Berkeley, MO on Saturday, September 24 from 10am-3pm. The project will focus on cleanup and geo-tagging the identity and locations of gravesites. Please register for the event at the link below.
Background
Washington Park Cemetery was founded in 1920 as an African-American cemetery. Urban development and mismanagement of the cemetery resulted in poor upkeep of the cemetery, undiscoverable headstones, and lost records. Over ten years ago, work was begun to rehabilitate the cemetery. The nonprofit group Saving Washington Cemetery has made great strides towards rehabilitation. ASLAA Serves previously volunteered at the cemetery in 2020.
Check out the efforts to save the cemetery at https://www.savingwashingtonpark.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/SavingWashingtonPark/. See more of the history of the cemetery at Washington University’s online exhibit: http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/washington-park/about-cemetery.
Volunteer Day Details
This is an outdoors event that will require extensive standing and walking. Be sure to dress appropriately for the work (e.g. hats, sunglasses, tennis shoes or boots, gloves) and have your bug spray, sunblock lotion, and water bottles ready! You can stay as little or as long as you’d like. There will be snacks, refreshments, and lunch offered. This is a social-distance-friendly event. There is lots of space to spread out. Please extend the invitation to your family, coworkers, neighbors, or church group! Volunteers must be at least 16 years of age. There is plenty of work for everyone!
Please note that you will need to sign a waiver before participating.
Projects
You can choose to do cleanup, grave-recording, or both! Here are the details…
Cleanup: Many areas are overgrown with vegetation. You can pick any area to work on, cutting and clearing the overgrowth. The cemetery has some tools and supplies on hand, but feel free to bring your own if possible. For this project, consider bringing lawn care tools such as loppers/pruning shears, shovel, wheelbarrow/garden cart, or weed whacker.
Again, you are not required to bring your own tools, but it would be helpful - contact us if you have questions.
Recovering Sunken Headstones: There may be some cases where a sunken headstone needs to be lifted. See https://fb.watch/cpjK36wkLT/. Don’t worry if you cannot perform this heavy lifting - we will find volunteers who can. The cemetery will provide the tools and guidance if our volunteers express interest in recovering headstones.
Grave Recording: You will be required to bring a smartphone or tablet with a data connection. There is no wifi to connect to. Please make sure your phone is fully charged, and bring a backup battery if you have one. The cemetery is no longer using FindaGrave.com. They are using a Geospatial Map & Survey with help from Esri and Seiler Instruments to geo-tag within 2.8 feet of the burial. They will walk us through the geo-tagging process the morning of the event. Volunteers will work in pairs with a single instrument. There are limited geo-tagging instruments - we will do our best to assign volunteers to their preferred projects!
Please bring small shears and work/gardening gloves if you can - you may need to clear minimal overgrowth from the headstone to read and photograph it. We will try to provide some pairs of shears for folks to use.
Registration
We ask that volunteers register with us below so we can keep a headcount and contact you with further project information. However, if you and your friends just want to show up, no one will be turned away! We’ll just have you register on-site the day-of and sign the waiver.
Register online at https://forms.gle/r9mfRRiuqnnnAw2q8.
Feel free to contact us with questions or concerns: Sabrina Gorse at sabrina.gorse[at]gmail.com, or Rena Schergen at renaschergen[at]archstl.org.
Please share this event with your colleagues, family, and friends! All are welcome to help!