Restore The Green Hill Cemetery Caretaker's Lodge

This is the story of two volunteers trying to preserve Martinsburg's 'City of the Dead'. I am writing this on behalf of our new Cemetery board. My name is Melissa and I am one of the Caretaker's for Green Hill Cemetery, the secretary for The Green Hill Cemetery Company, and the creator of the Adopt-A-Grave program, GHC website and social media pages. In the past 4 months we have strived to reinvent our board by bringing in new board members with the sole interest to restore, preserve, and maintain our historic cemetery. I have recently re-applied for a non-profit status that was lost in 2007, and am currently waiting on approval.

As we await approval, our new board has been planning events in the spring, including planting a pollinator garden for educational activities and a headstone resetting course. While events help bring interest into this once forgotten cemetery it does not help us restore the once abandoned Caretaker's Lodge from 1901.

The Caretaker's Lodge is truly one of a kind. It has been researched, and found to be the ONLY active Lodge on the entire East Coast that has Caretakers 24/7, for the purpose of securing and maintaining the cemetery.

After 4 years we were finally about to establish a new board that is willing to restore this house. We were able to have the chimneys fixed and stop the leaks into our home. However, we recently found out we will need to look into replacing the roof, as there is still a small leak from one of the chimney's. Using gifts from past events we were able to replace the flooring in the living room that had holes from the last occupant. We have put in a large chunk of our time and money to make the house livable, by replacing major appliances out of pocket. We also had to install shelving because the kitchen was completely gutted. We recently had an inspector come into the lodge to give us a full list of everything that should be repaired. The total projects required have been estimated to cost around $80,000

This funding will help us start these major projects. We are starting with repairing the roof, replacing the gutters, and painting the exterior of the Lodge. We also need to repair walls, ceilings, floors, windows, and paint the inside of the home. The Lodge needs major repairs.

If you've ever been helped by one of the Caretakers, you know we aren't in it for the money. Everyone that works in this cemetery, works as volunteers. We rarely allow gifts from visitors when we help them find family members. We want to ensure this house can stand for another 100 years when we're gone. Any gift provided to help our cause is greatly appreciated.

Cost Breakdown:

$6,500 for roof repair

$700 for water main line repair

$10,000 exterior repair and painting. Which includes replacing soffits, rain gutters, both porches

$5,000 for window replacements