Want to adopt a pioneer? Kent’s Pioneer Cemetery Preservation Group is seeking volunteers willing to help clean up the city’s oldest cemetery at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22.
Tasks include picking up branches and sticks, raking leaves, weeding, trimming grass around the plots, and planting perennials and annuals at the gravesites. Nancy Stillwagon, secretary of PCPG, says deer are frequent visitors, so volunteers should choose plantings that are deer resistant.
Mulch will be on hand, and a wheelbarrow to move it, but volunteers must bring their own shovels, rakes, clippers, buckets, watering cans, etc. There is a water pump at the cemetery. Each volunteer will be given a stake to place alongside the grave(s) they have chosen to “adopt.”
Stillwagon looks forward to seeing seasoned and new volunteers who are interested in maintaining and revitalizing Pioneer Cemetery, and in learning about some of Kent’s earliest residents.
Need an added incentive? A fall cleanup that includes a pizza party is planned as well. More info on that will be available closer to the event.
Wendy DiAlesandro
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.