Community cleans up city cemetery
Aupresident has taken the initiative of cleaning the city’s cemetery with the vision of restoring it to its former glory.
For the past three Saturdays, Warren Stevenson, along with his daughter and some employees, has been cleaning up the cemetery on Commercial Road.
Stevenson loves the city’s historically rich buildings, especially the ‘Maritzburg’ red brick; so he was shocked to discover the state of the city’s cemetery one day when he drove past.
“I stopped my car, got out and went to have a look. Afterwards, I thought, you’ve got to start somewhere and why leave it to the municipality if they don’t seem to care? So I grabbed some of my staff members, my daughter and her boyfriend, and roped them into cleaning the cemetery with me every Saturday morning,” Stevenson said.
The clean-up has just snowballed since then, and three weeks later, more people have joined and interest keeps growing.
“One guy said he can donate 150 red bricks to repatch the one broken section of the wall. People want to get involved and have shown a lot of support. Some volunteers have a great knowledge of the cemetery’s history too.”
Stevenson said their biggest challenge currently is the carting of rubbish as they would require a large truck or company to assist, and no one works on weekends. “We can only do one wheelie bin at a time because we don’t have the resources to transport large amounts of rubbish. So when the rubbish bags run out, we pack up,” he said.
Because there’s a lot of red tape attached to the actual restoration of the site, for now, they are focusing on clearing the rubbish out first while they engage with Amafa and the municipality to assist with the repairs and maintenance.
The group will be at the cemetery every Saturday morning from 8.30am; anyone is welcome to join. Bring spades, gloves, refuse bags and any cutting equipment.
For more information, contact Stevenson on 083 703 1380.