RUTLAND, Vt. (WCAX) – Rutland’s Evergreen Cemetery is building back better. The 163-year-old cemetery has faced financial challenges and back in March the board announced it would fold. However, plot holders last month voted in a new board of trustees that hopes for smooth sailing ahead.
“We inherited a ship that needed righting, and that’s what we’re doing, the challenge for us is to right this ship,” said Don Adams Jr., the new president of the Evergreen Cemetery Association.
Adams and other new board members introduced themselves to plot owners for the first time this week laying out some of their challenges and goals for the old burial ground.
“Being born and raised here, my great, great grandfather is buried here. It’s just a nice feeling that there’s so much support in the community with everybody coming forward and saying, you know, we want to help, we want to volunteer, we want to do anything we can do because we want this cemetery to stay open,” said board member Jill Maynard Nolan.
Several Vermont governors, U.S. representatives, and military veterans have been laid to rest at the more than 160-year-old cemetery. The board plans to preserve the future of the grounds, putting together a business plan to ensure financial viability.
“We’ve done a lot in a short period of time, and it’s mainly due to the number of people who have stepped up and helped,” Adams said.
The board hopes to rebuild an investment trust that can be used for repairs or maintenance. Nolan says the lack of one — combined with a drop in burials — is what caused the cemetery to nearly close. “It’s just the costs of everything have increased, and with that happening, the cemetery has fallen behind in the past, so we need to get ahead of this,” she said.
Now, as a nonprofit specifically for cemeteries, the board says they are open for business with plots and burial services for sale.