Penny Cemetery Fund announces Evergreen Cemetery clean-up

Evergreen Cemetery is a historic African-American cemetery in the East End of Richmond, Virginia dating from 1891. Notable African-American Richmonders including Maggie L. Walker, John Mitchell, Jr., A.D.Price, and Rev.J.Andrew Bowler are buried there. Much of the privately-owned cemetery is completely overgrown with kudzu or is returning to forest. The original organization responsible for the cemetery, the Evergreen Cemetery Association, made no allowances for perpetual care in its charter. In 1970, the association sold its more than 5,000 plots to Metropolitan Memorial Services, which soon went bankrupt. Although listed on the State & National registers of historic places this privately owned cemetery has been abandoned for years.

The Penny Cemetery Fund, an attempt to bring new sources of volunteers and funding to the reclamation of Evergreen Cemetery, is organizing a volunteer clean-up day on Saturday, October 31st. The goal to is to clear one acre. The Penny Cemetery Fund is a charitable foundation created, to restore Evergreen Cemetery, a historic Black cemetery, in Richmond’s east end. Contact Deanna Lewis at deanna@pennycemeteryfund.org for more information about the clean-up or the Penny Cemetery Fund. A Families and Friends group on Yahoo has been the organizing point for a handful of volunteers that have been working doggedly to clean and maintain portions of the privately-owned cemetery.