ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 During this Women\u2019s History Month, one woman, along with a dedicated group, is looking to preserve a part of Eatonville’s history.<\/p>\n
Jean Alexander leads the Eatonville Community Cemetery Association; it\u2019s a non-profit overseeing Eatonville Memorial Gardens.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
For years, Jean Alexander has led the non-profit responsible for the upkeep of a historic cemetery just outside the town of Eatonville. She is hoping to encourage more people to volunteer to keep the cemetery going<\/p>\n
Alexander\u00a0took over the cemetery back in 2019 and has kept it running even during the pandemic. Over the years, she and board members have led spirited clean-up efforts to help restore the property to its former glory<\/p>\n
The non-profit board members are hoping to make the cemetery a historic landmark and incentivize younger generations to get involved<\/p>\n
Armed with a mighty team, Alexander and other volunteers make sure that burials happen seamlessly and families have proper burials for their loved ones. Many of her own family members are buried here.<\/p>\n
Alexander says it is God who keeps her going, and it’s God who sent a dedicated team of volunteers helping with the upkeep.<\/p>\n
Volunteer Jasmine Jordan says it is a must to be there, helping to preserve history at every turn.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery Saturday when she calls, I come to just volunteer, ” Jordan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So does Kimberly LaRoche, call it a family tradition. She has been coming to the cemetery since her childhood. Alexander is her aunt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you her passion is evident, she is here night and day, she\u2019s on our phone, she\u2019s in our emails, she is definitely setting forth the example for us to follow going forward,\u201d LaRoche said.<\/p>\n
Consultant and friend Alton Williams also runs similar cemeteries in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has done wonders with this place. It was terrible. It takes volunteers to help bring this along and it\u2019s very important that people do volunteer,” Williams said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Volunteering and getting involved with the same spirit and heart as Alexander, who wants more for the historic cemetery.<\/p>\n
She wants paved pathways, more trees and brush cutaways and also for this to one day make it a state-designated historic landmark, forever preserving the grounds for generations to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I have to pass it on, I\u2019m just hoping that I can find someone or somebody who care half of much of it half as much as I do for it and \u00a0I think it will be alright\u2026if I can find that, I will be satisfied,\u201d Alexander said.<\/p>\n
Satisfied that this historic resting place for the dead will live on forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 During this Women\u2019s History Month, one woman, along with a dedicated group, is looking to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2297,3076,28293,54687,1548,115,772,1335,139,141,140,53989],"class_list":["post-185027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-everyday-heroes","tag-app-good-news","tag-curtis-mccloud","tag-everyday-heroes","tag-good-news","tag-news","tag-on-air-ticker-article","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-womens-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}