DOBBINS HEIGHTS — The new round of cleanup at the Dobbins Heights Cemetery started from Alexander Robinson’s family’s plots and grew to be an effort between himself, family, volunteers and the Town of Dobbins Heights to clean the entire cemetery.
Robinson and crew got to the cemetery early Wednesday morning to beat the heat. They have mowed the overgrown grass on the majority of the plots and two city workers equipped with a tractor were out tearing away small trees along the road to make a better “first impression” on visitors. Much of the most visible piles of trash have been cleared over the last couple of months, though some pockets remain.
The trash grew to a hot button issue last summer when a resident raised concerns about how difficult it was to find his family members in the cemetery, though no cleanup efforts came from it until now. It is up to the owner’s of each plot to keep it clean, though many plots were allowed to fall into poor condition over the years and the cemetery became a popular trash dumping site, especially in the surrounding areas and spaces between plots, though in some cases trash was dumped directly on graves.
Robinson compared this new effort to “The Tale of Two Donkeys” in which two donkeys connected by a rope are trying to eat their food but neither can reach their’s because they are pulling against each other. The donkeys, representing the two sides of the cemetery dispute, eventually learn that they can both benefit by coming together and eating the meals one at a time.
“It’s good to see people come together to start something,” Robinson said. His “vision” started from the graves of his mother, Minnie Lee Robinson, and his grandmother, Fannie Coppage, and grew out from there to clean the neighboring plots.
Robinson’s nephew, Carey Robinson, said they come down to see their family buried in the cemetery on holidays, like Mother’s Day, and birthdays and always maintained their plot, but the trash that built up along the edges of the cemetery and in unattended plots became an “eye sore.”
Lorne Terry with We Do It All Lawn Service was one of the volunteers on Wednesday. Terry said his grandfather, Gladys Davis, used to be in charge of cleaning the cemetery and would take young Terry out with him. He said saw a post from Robinson on Facebook he “wanted in.”
“It’s not to make money — I got relatives out here,” Terry said. “It helps the community … even if you can’t help working you can donate to the cause.”
Robinson said that people have been asking him how he expects to clean the whole cemetery.
“I said, ‘That’s up to God.’ All you’ve got to do is reach out and He’ll provide,” Robinson said. “Anything worth having is worth working for.”
The volunteers and workers at the cemetery on Wednesday included Willie Mininall, Michael Terry, Gloria Meninall, Edward Tender, Roy Mininall, and town employees James Mumford and Jamar Allen.
Robinson said he hopes that with enough volunteers, they can keep the cemetery clean long-term without him continuing to have to pay some of the workers out of pocket. Anyone interested in volunteering can call Robinson at 910-206-7098.
