Army with weedeaters is sought to clean up 12-acre Cranston cemetery

CRANSTON — Over the last few years, Russell Farmer has been organizing members of his church to help clean up Cranston, for what he calls "Others Day."

The members go to properties in Cranston and mow lawns, cut back bushes and deal with overgrown plots, all for free, after getting permission from the owners.

Now, Farmer, the pastor at the Gateway Pentecostal Fellowship, wants to extend that ethos to a much bigger job that will require an army of volunteers: cleaning up the Oakland Cemetery on Broad Street. He is organizing a cleanup day on Saturday, Aug. 6, starting at 10 a.m., at the cemetery.

People who have loved ones buried at the cemetery have been complaining about the lack of upkeep, evidenced by waist-high grass through much of the 12-acre property, and illegal dumping of household trash and bulky items, like sofas and mattresses.

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"If we could get 100 people with weed eaters, we could cut that thing down in an hour," Farmer said. "It would be fabulous and it's very possible for us to do that."

He is looking for volunteers willing to do manual labor and others with landscaping tools to cut the grass, clear brush and remove tree limbs from graves. He is also looking for help  hauling away the trash piling up at the cemetery, along various buildings, at the front entrance and covering graves.

"Now's the time for people who have been complaining," Farmer said. "Words are cheap and actions are what we need."

Cleanup, looking for volunteers, scheduled for Aug. 6

The cleanup of the Oakland Cemetery is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Aug. 6. The main entrance to the 12-acre cemetery is at 1569 Broad St. The cemetery's far side is ringed by Roger Williams Memorial Park, off F C Greene Memorial Boulevard.

Farmer can be contacted by phone at his church, the Gateway Pentecostal Fellowship, at (401) 467-3830 or by email at gatewaypentecostalfellowship@gmail.com.

What: Cleanup of the Oakland Cemetery. Volunteers are encouraged to bring their own landscaping tools.

When: 10 a.m., Aug. 6

Where: Oakland Cemetery, 1569 Broad Street

From cleaning yards to community-wide works

While Farmer's efforts started with a few lawns in Cranston, he decided to contact the city to see what work needed to be done. City officials told him the Oakland Cemetery was a perennial source of complaints.

In an interview on July 5, Anthony Moretti, chief of staff for the mayor's office, said the cemetery isn't a public property, so the city is limited in what it can do, which is mostly citing the cemetery for violating town ordinances.

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"There is no apparent solution, other than private money," he said.

Pockets of the cemetery look pristine, with clear borders between cut grass and grass gone to seed. Maintaining one of those areas on Tuesday was Augustine Acosta and Julio Gomez.

Acosta, in the shade under a tree next to his mother's grave, motioned to a sea of tall grass. His son, other family members and friends are buried nearby, and he maintains their plots as well.

"We clean it up on our own," he said. "Everything is broken."

Gomez, armed with a rag and bucket of water, was washing a family member's ledger-type grave.

"I don't know why," he said, looking at the rest of the rest of the cemetery. "Just look at that. I don't know."

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The men said they came come to the cemetery most days, sitting under the shade. Gomez motioned to a large, well-kept area, near the edge of the cemetery, and said one family comes every few weeks to maintain the space.

Is there a way to keep the cemetery clean?

Farmer and any volunteers who show up to clean up the cemetery will hopefully have an impact that lasts beyond the summer, Moretti said.

Perhaps what is needed most is a consistent set of volunteers, or an association, cutting the grass and hauling trash, instead of once-a-year cleanups organized because conditions have become deplorable, Farmer said.

Cristine DeMarco, who has lived next door to the cemetery and the crumbling Roger Williams Park Mausoleum for 20 years, said cleanup efforts have come, and then never come back, as the trash and weeds just keep coming, and growing, back.

A group that comes more than come once a year is needed to turn the cemetery around, she said.

Cranston Historical Cemeteries Commission Chairman John Hill, a retired Journal reporter, previously said his group will coordinate cleanup events for smaller historical cemeteries, usually when they can find neighbors willing to do upkeep and maintenance after volunteers chop down and haul out many years' worth of growth.

"There's not much point to going in there and cleaning it up if in five weeks, everything is growing back and it looks like it did before," Hill said.

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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com or follow him on Twitter @WheelerReporter.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Cranston's Oakland Cemetery: Group seeks volunteers to clean up Aug. 6