Eagle Scout project cleans veterans' headstones

Marysville Boy Scout Colin Roach and several fellow community members helped clean up hundreds of headstones of veterans before Memorial Day this year.

Roach said he was looking for a community service idea for his Eagle Scout project earlier this year.

“I was talking with my Scoutmaster about what I could do,” he said. “Cemeteries were an idea of where I could help, especially with Memorial Day coming up at the time."

He called the Marysville Cemetery and met with the staff, who were able to help Roach locate all of the gravestones of veterans there.

Roach said he wanted to help with this project.

“With Memorial Day coming up if there was something I could do to help these gravestones look better, I wanted to do it,” he said.

There wasn’t that much time before Memorial Day though and he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to gather enough people to come out for the event.

Community members and fellow Boy Scouts did come out to help and about 250 to 300 headstones were cleaned throughout six hours of work.

“We couldn’t get all of them done, sadly,” said Roach. “We got to work cleaning as many of the headstones as we could that were out there."

The group helped clean all of the dirt and other material that had accumulated on many of the headstones.

“Some were not even readable. And that’s sad, because these were people who served our country and now the place that they are resting is in such a poor condition,” said Roach.

Roach said there were one or two that the group was not able to clean, but they were able to improve most of them.

“They look a lot better. You can read most of them now,” said Roach.

“Most of them looked completely different,” after cleaning, he said.

Many of the volunteers who came out to help wanted to honor those who have made a sacrifice for their country.

“I think for everyone who came out, it just made us feel good. It gave us a sense of pride to help out,” said Roach.

Roach’s Boy Scout troop also helps every year with the Marysville Cemetery’s Memorial Day work.

“The next week we came out to help plant flags at the temerity as well,” he said.

Roach is with Marysville’s Boy Scout Troop 82 and encourages anyone who wants to help their community to join them.