News
Beech Bend Trip Offered to Cleanup Helpers
Date: August 2005
By Eric Snyder
The Leaf-Chronicle, Clarksville
Many don't learn there's no such thing as a free lunch until their high
school economics class.
Geneva Bell and the Mount Olive Cemetery Preservation Society are trying
to impart that lesson a little sooner to local kids.
he society is sponsoring a trip Wednesday to Beech Bend Amusement and
Water Park in Bowling Green, Ky.
It's not a trip designed for orphans or disadvantaged children — though
they're certainly welcome — but it's designed to reward children who
volunteered their time to help maintain the Mount Olive Cemetery.
"We don't want to raise a generation of freebie kids," Bell said
Wednesday.
The preservation society has been sponsoring cleanup days for about four
weeks.
In return for a couple hours of honest work — picking up branches and
such in the 1,000 plot cemetery — the children will be rewarded with the
free trip.
Bell said 30 children have so far taken advantage of their offer — with
about seven of them volunteering more than once.
"All the kids that have been out there have had a ball," Bell said,
though she noted some were initially nervous about spending time in a
cemetery.
In addition to working for a reward, Bell said the experience has
"helped to get them familiar with their ancestors, and not to be afraid
of them."
Bell said the children have studied the tombstones in the vine-covered
cemetery, noting the deaths of toddlers and the birthdays they share
with the deceased.
The preservation society is sponsoring a final clean-up day Saturday
before the trip, lasting from about 9 a.m. until noon.
Children under 8 should have adult supervision (at the cemetery and
amusement park), and volunteers should preferably have their own
transportation to the cemetery, located between Rollins and Beverly
Hills drives.
Transportation to the amusement park, however, will be provided.
"We're going to feed them before we leave (Wednesday), while we're there
and on the way home," Bell said.
The society is funding the trip to Bowling Green with a $10,000 grant
from Paul Newman and USA Weekend magazine.
That grant was a reward for Bell's 2006 Make a Difference Day Project,
in which she helped raise more than $2,100 to finance 28 scholarships
allowing local people to take their GED high school equivalency exams.
Bell said she wasn't sure if she'd go for a dip next week. "I won't say
no, because sometimes the kids will talk me into something," Bell said.
Any interested in helping Saturday from about 9 a.m. until noon can call
Bell at 552-8026.
Eric Snyder covers city government and the courts. He can be reached at
245-0262 or by e-mail at
