As we enter the last two months of 2021, here’s a review of what’s happened in the past year at Riverside. This year we have worked hard to improve the landscape and bring people into the cemetery. Hundreds joined us for tours and educational programs (with UConn and Atlas Preservation). Donations from those events, along with our previous annual giving campaigns, enabled us to:
- Begin a campaign to clean and repair monuments.
- Pave the back road, completing a smooth loop around the cemetery.
- Repair the fountain on the lower pond to improve the quality of the water and enhance the landscape.
- Hire Davey Resource Group to complete a tree inventory/management plan to ensure a healthy and diverse tree population for generations.
- Engage Martha Lyon Landscape Architecture to identify places appropriate for additional burial space, columbaria, and perhaps, a sprinkling garden.
- Ask Daedlus Art for a proposal to restore the “The Writing Lady” bronze sculpture, stolen and cut up for scrap 10 years ago.
In 2022, among other things, we are planning to:
- Apply for arboretum status based on our completed tree inventory.
- Offer additional tour options, including a Heroes Walk Memorial Day weekend.
- Host a music event/concert similar to the woodwind quintet we hosted this past June.
- Continue to pave roads in need or repair for safe travels within the cemetery.
- Organize volunteers to help with monument cleaning and repair.
- Move forward in our quest to restore The Hall Chapel through grant applications and special fundraisers.
As always, your support is crucial to keeping our historic cemetery beautiful. Our founders intended this space to be a living museum of art and history for all of us, for you. Please consider donating today for the continued preservation of our national historic landmark.