Ever notice grime build up on headstones in a cemetery? Well, Beyond the Yellow Ribbon committee for Hibbing / Chisholm has been sponsoring volunteer opportunities to clean up veteran headstones at the Maple Hill Cemetery. Multiple volunteer days and times were set up for people to join.

As members of the committee walked through the Cemetary before they found some headstones were quite hard to read and others were covered in mold. With veterans from WWI, multiple Purple Heart recipients and a Bronze Star recipient among women nurses from the Army and Navy during WWI, they felt that they deserved better. So, the members got together to start their project.

The first volunteer day was Tuesday, 10am to 12pm & 1pm to 3pm. While the second day is planned for Monday, August 12th with having later shifts of 2pm to 4pm & 5pm to 7pm.

What started out small by working with Perpetual Care of Minnesota on how to safely clean, to spraying the headstones with “Wet and Forget” to help release some of the grime, they had a slow start. Now, they have support of the city of Hibbing and even Walmart has offered their help. Larry Pocrnich shared with me at the first shift of their volunteers scrubbing the headstones, how things came to be.

“So, we started it, we got the mining company veterans involved, we’ve got the military veterans involved with the organizations around here, and it just spiraled from there on cleaning the stones. So, we put up like an agenda, it’d be the stones first, the footstones are next, then we do the flag poles and flags. They’re all kind of going simultaneously with different groups inside of Beyond Yellow Ribbon and the other groups. So, we’re kind of working on it, but we want to get the headstones cleaned first so that it looks nice for Memorial Day.“

Gratitude & How YOU Can Help Out

Larry, who is the director of Beyond Yellow Ribbon, expressed his gratefulness for the overarching support the project has received.

“So, yeah, I just got told this morning that Walmart is donating their time and money for us to help clean the headstones for the veterans. So that hits you right here. It’s like, businesses and people volunteering to come do this, that’s great.”

When we went over to see the first shift of volunteers help restore the headstones to their original glory, there was even more people showing up to help than Larry had expected. He told me that the shift happening later on Tuesday, July 23rd at 1pm had over 20 people showing up to help out. Larry was overjoyed with overwhelming excitement.

“I would love to thank all of the people that are volunteering for this, Veterans and non-Veterans. It started out small and according to our portal right now, Chris gave me the list last night. It’s just, it’s overwhelming. It’s very appreciative that this many people help us.”

To volunteer and sign up to help Beyond the Yellow Ribbon on this project and future parts of the restoration, head over to the United Way volunteer portal – tinyurl.com/HibbingCemetery