GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Volunteers put on their boots and gloves Monday morning and got to work cleaning up the Grand Rapids Veterans Home Cemetery.
The cleanup was organized by veterans with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. More than 20 veterans, state workers and community members grabbed rakes and brushes to clean up gravesites.
This was the second year of the event. Organizers said last year, they were only able to pick up sticks and rake leaves. This year, they were able to scrub gravestones.
“Serving the community is just a really heartwarming experience and we have twice the volunteers that we have this year compared to last year,” Autumn Henney, the project manager for the remediation and redevelopment division at EGLE, said.
Henney also served for five years in the U.S. Marine Corps. She said the event fell perfectly on Earth Day.
“We need to help protect our Earth for all of the future generations. Everybody enjoys being outside and doing fun things and without all of us volunteers coming out and helping clean up, realizing that everything we do impacts the environment, it’s really important to keep that in mind,” Henney said.