Once again, the “Cargill Cares Cropping for the Birchip Community” program has come to the rescue of the Birchip Cemetery Trust.
The Birchip Cemetery Trust’s ride on mower was costing the trust an excessive amount in repairs, but replacing these big-ticket items is difficult for the trust. Fortunately though, the “Cargill Cares Cropping for the Birchip Community” project generously provided the $4776 required to replace the old mower with a brand new mower from YBS.
This donation is further to a donation of $18,000 towards the trust’s 2023 project to install concrete plinths in all six rows of lawn cemetery to rehouse the plaques that used to sit precariously on individual concrete blocks or directly on the lawn.
The Birchip Cemetery Trust members extend their heartfelt thanks to Colin Hill, site manager at Birchip Cargill, and Andrew Lee and Andrew Barber who generously give their time, expertise and machinery to manage the local Cargill Cares Cropping program.
Support
“Cargill Cares Cropping for the Birchip Community” has supported a large number of projects in the local area and continues to do so.
Chairman of the Birchip Cemetery Trust Grant Cartwright, said: “Cargill’s commitment to improving the communities where they are located is tremendous and we are very grateful for their donations.”
Grant, caretaker Darren Taylor, trust members and community volunteers have contributed a large amount of manpower to get the cemetery looking pristine and donations like this help enormously in their endeavour to preserve our history and provide a fitting memorial site for past community members and your loved ones.
Having well-maintained facilities and headstones and a pleasant aesthetic environment is very important to local families and the large number of cemetery visitors who regularly visit loved ones or research their family history.
Diligent
The Birchip Cemetery Trust has been diligent in preserving the records of those interred in Birchip. They have digitalised their interment records and made them available on the Birchip web page (www.birchip.vic.au). Under the cemetery records tab there are interment records, photographs of the respective headstones and where they have been supplied, eulogies or a short history of those interred.
Families can provide the Birchip Neighbourhood House with photographs, eulogies (digital) and interesting information (e.g. newspaper articles) to be attached to interment records. For more information, please contact Simone on 0429 922 735 or email birchipblc@bigpond.com
Families can also add, renew or recondition their plaques and headstones at any time, but it is a legal requirement to obtain permission to install new or make changes to old headstones/plaques in a cemetery or crematorium. Permission can be gained by contacting Simone Christie administrator of the Birchip Cemetery Trust, at the Birchip Neighbourhood House 0429 922735.
The Cargill Cares “Cropping for the Birchip Community” program are very generous benefactors of the local community, and the Birchip Cemetery Trust is very grateful for their financial contribution which has supported them to continue improving the Birchip Cemetery and its records.