POTTSTOWN — The annual fall Edgewood Cemetery Community Cleanup will take place this Saturday, Oct. 5, at 989 E. High St., with work beginning at 10 a.m. and running until 2 p.m.
This particular cleanup will benefit from a crew of volunteers from Red Horse Motoring Club, which has offered to tackle the overgrown bank of the grounds located along Keim Street between High and Beech streets, and chipping services through Find Solutions Properties LLC.
Residents who can bring and operate weed-whackers and chainsaws will be welcomed — as well as all civic-minded volunteers willing to wield rakes and shovels in this community effort to beautify the grounds. Tools and gloves will be provided.
Volunteer and historian Kelly Fenstermacher will offer free informational tours of the cemetery during the cleanup.
The rain date for the cleanup will be Saturday, Oct. 12.
“The Edgewood cleanups have become bigger and better each year,” according to Andrew Monastra, president of the Cemetery Friends Board, Hobart’s Run Board member, and Pottstown Borough Council member representing the Sixth Ward.
“Participants look forward to this high-energy day of giving back to Pottstown and to the families of people buried on the grounds,” he said in a press release announcing the cleanup.
Lunch will be served to volunteers through the generosity of local restaurants; contributions are welcomed.
Organizers said special thanks go to Little Italy/The Pourhouse for its reliable and generous participation.
Volunteering to clean up the cemetery also helps set the stage for a Halloween-season walking tour called “The Infamous of Edgewood,” which tells the stories of some of the more unsavory real-life characters who are buried there.
Tickets are now on sale for “The Infamous of Edgewood” Halloween-Season Walking Tour featuring costumed reenactors and interpreters. It will be held Saturday, Oct. 19 at the cemetery. The rain date will be Oct. 26.
Learn more by contacting Kelly Fenstermacher by phone call or text at 610-506-7033 or email at kelly@historicedgewood.com. Tickets are $20 each, or $10 for students and children. There are three available tour groups to choose from: Noon, 1 p.m., and 2 p.m. A third tour time will be added if the firstthree times fill up.
Light refreshments are included in the tour price.
Guests will learn about a 1924 murder-suicide at the Pottstown YMCA as portrayed by actors playing the mother of the victim and the local reporter who covered this horrific tragedy. They also will hear Pottstown ghost stories (and they will be invited to share their own). Finally, the Infamous tour will introduce “the Hungarian Love Triangle” and the fascinating story behind the crime and interment at Edgewood of those involved in this “true crime” tale.
Reserve your spot for one of the three tour cycles at https://givebutter.com/InfamousatEdgewood12noon, or https://givebutter.com/InfamousatEdgewood1pm, or https://givebutter.com/InfamousatEdgewood2pm.
Adopt-a-Gravestone Effort Ongoing
Volunteers continue to gratefully accept gifts for the “Adopt-a-Gravestone” program created to address the headstone toppling and sinking of many plots due to the natural passage of time, early and less stable burial methods, and the Cemetery’s serious groundhog-related destruction problem.
To date, these efforts funded by generous donors have allowed the Cemetery to restore nine tombstones. Individuals who would like to help with Adopt-a-Gravestone may contact Kelly Fenstermacher (call or text) at 610-506-7033 or go to https://givebutter.com/adoptagravestone to donate directly.
Volunteers will be selling Edgewood Cemetery merchandise to benefit the mowing fund as well as Adopt-a-Gravestone. Items to be sold at both the cleanup and the Walk to Remember Edgewood tour will include three-quarter length sleeved shirts ($20 each) featuring the Edgewood logo on the front as well as a bold image on the back of “Eddie Edgewood,” the hawk who makes his home in the Cemetery’s trees, beautifully drawn by volunteer and artist Jess Grater.
All Edgewood grounds maintenance depends upon donors and fundraisers planned by a small band of volunteers including staff from Hobart’s Run, a neighborhood engagement organization founded by The Hill School. Gifts for the above-mentioned and other restoration projects will be accepted with gratitude at: Edgewood Historic Cemetery, c/o 740 E. High St., Pottstown, PA 19464 or through the organization’s general “Give Butter” donation acceptance site at https://givebutter.com/edgewood-historic-cemetery.
Caring for the 12-acre Cemetery runs close to $20,000 a year. Unfortunately, Edgewood’s caretaker abandoned the cemetery in 2012, and borough funds are not provided for its maintenance. The grounds soon became overgrown — until volunteers joined forces with Hobart’s Run, to find ways to collaborate, fund, and restore this resting place.
Source: Berkshire mont
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