My new worksite this year. I'm volunteering for a local cemetery association, to preserve headstones for this beautiful 130+ year old church in Wisconsin.
I wanted to share a bit of my experience, since seeking permission is something many of us navigate in different ways. Over the winter, I reached out to a cemetery association in a nearby town, offering to volunteer my time to clean headstones. I do this work entirely as a free volunteer in my spare time using methods approved by the National Park Service and National Cemetery Administration, and I made that clear in my initial contact. They replied that they would bring my request to their next board meeting for the trustees to review.
I then drafted a letter they could send to their members (families with loved ones buried there), explaining my services and requesting permission to care for their plots. The responses began coming in quickly, and I now have a growing list of families who have opted in.
The cemetery association also discussed amongst themselves and agreed that I could clean any site in the cemetery, even if permissions weren't received from family members (due to lack of contact information, no living family members, etc.). Obviously if anyone responded denying permissions, that will be honored.
This is a lovely rural cemetery, with just over 200 standing headstones. I'm so excited to have this chance to help care for a little chunk of history.