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Evergreen reclamation stopped, volunteers move to East End Cemetery

Back in July, a mainstay of the reclamation at long-neglected Evergreen Cemetery John Shuck posted that the volunteer work by Virginia Roots was being put to a stop:

I am sad to say that this is the last announcement about Evergreen volunteer work. The clean up project has been ended due to some issues that I can’t discuss. I would like to thank everyone who has come out to Evergreen over the past 5 years to help with the clean up.

There is some good news. The clean up effort will be moved to East End Cemetery which is adjacent to Evergreen Cemetery. I plan to be out there Saturday morning at 9 a.m. to check out the situation and maybe do some work. We will be starting more or less from scratch.

Shuck explained this morning via email that the owner of Evergreen has not blocked the group of volunteers from working at the cemetery, but that that the choice to move was made due to “financial issues between the primary stock holder of UK corporation which owns Evergreen and Woodland cemeteries and our non-profit group”. The adjacent East End Cemetery has been officially declared abandoned by Henrico county, and is as equally overgrown as Evergreen Cemetery.

There are four contiguous cemeteries in the area east of Oakwood Cemetery known as the “Four Cemeteries at Evergreen”: Evergreen, East End Cemetery, Oakwood Colored Section, and Colored Pauper’s Cemetery. East End Cemetery is or was the final resting place for several notable Richmond area African-Americans such as Rosa Bowser and Virginia Randolph.

Volunteers are out almost every weekend reclaiming this cemetery from the forest. If you’re interested in helping, contact John Shuck at jshuck@rocketmail.com or (804)728-9475. To keep up on volunteer days, follow John on twitter at @findagraver.