Historic Graveyard Preservation

While assessing community needs, students noticed that a local historic graveyard was in a state of decay, and they decided to do something about it. They developed a plan to restore 166 headstones, of which 50 were vandalized and 116 were destroyed by age and weathering. The headstones were photographed, identified and assigned a replacement value. Students wrote letters to area businesses, churches, and civic organizations requesting that they adopt a headstone. The youths also researched and placed a marker at the grave of the city's first African-American physician.