A few fun ways to get involved with your community

Erin Brodbeck, LCSW, CT,
Director of Grief Services,
Center for Loss & Healing

Are you currently getting involved with your local community? Do you host events that attract visitors to your cemetery? A great way to get people in your community to come to your cemetery is by hosting an event.

At Sunset Memorial Park, we host a number of events throughout the year. We do this with hopes that families will not only enjoy the beautiful surroundings but also realize there are more reasons to visit a cemetery than to grieve a lost loved one.

In the spring and summer, we host ice cream socials. It is a great and easy way to attract people to your cemetery. We offer ice cream, musical entertainment, friendly conversation and prizes. It provides a great social atmosphere and lifts some of the heavy hearts visiting the cemetery.

In the fall, we enjoy gatherings with local students during Arbor Day and closer to Halloween for Pumpkin day. On Arbor Day, students from area schools help our horticulturists plant a tree in our cemetery. On Pumpkin day, students enjoy games, coloring and time in our pumpkin patch.

When you first start hosting events in your cemetery, I suggest starting small. You can host an informational luncheon or an ice cream social. Then consider branching out to larger events. When you get involved with your community, you will make lasting relationships and provide families new and unique ways to remember their loved ones. It will be good for your business and good grief for the families that you serve.


This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.

Whose book are you writing today?

John Albers,
Plant Manager

When I was a young boy, I grew up in a small, traditional town with only one cemetery. A majority of the burials were traditional and the headstones or memorials were as well. Occasionally, a family would include a small photo of their loved one under glass, embedded in the stone. Those were the memorials that really caught my eye when visiting family or friends. The photo helped tell the story of the person’s life. It gave visitors a glimpse of who they were.

Since joining the Trigard team, I have learned so much about the importance of permanent memorialization. When we combine the family’s love and our designer’s talents with our unique process of transferring 3D images onto bronze, we help family’s tell their loved one’s story and continue their legacy.

I see dozens of finished memorials, plaques and signs each day, and the impact our product has still amazes me. I encourage you to continue helping families heal by creating permanent memorials. When we help them tell their stories and think back on their memories, we help carry them through some tough times. And, when we create a custom memorial for a family, it becomes more than a piece of bronze, it becomes their storybook.

This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.

Don't miss out because you're stuck in your ways

Rich Darby,
Chief Operating Officer

How do you know you have a good product? How do you know you are making a difference? I knew when I heard this powerful story.

A family wanted to honor their loved one with a personalized bronze memorial filled with colorful photos. However, the cemetery they chose only offered traditional memorials with emblems and borders. Instead of settling for something that wasn’t exactly what they wanted, they got online and found Trigard Memorials. We connected them with a dealer, and the family designed a beautiful, unique, modern memorial that tells the story of their loved one’s life. They brought it back to the cemetery, and it is now a special place for the family to share memories.

But that’s not the end of the story. It gets even better.

A woman was walking in that same cemetery and the Collage memorial caught her eye. She was so impressed with it that she called the cemetery office to order a similar design for her loved one. The cemetery told her that they didn’t offer that type of memorial and sent her on her way.

The woman was so intent on getting her loved one a personalized bronze memorial that she wrote a message on a post-it note, stuck it on the bronze memorial in the cemetery and hoped the other family saw it. The note asked the family to please give her the name of the company that they purchased the memorial from so she could order one for her loved one as well. And they absolutely did.

WOW! By insisting on only offering traditional memorials, this cemetery lost out on two memorial sales. And not just any sales. These families were so passionate about honoring their loved ones in just the right way that they were willing to do a lot of legwork.

Are you letting your old ways prevent you from giving families what they are asking for? In all my years of manufacturing, I have never heard such a powerful story. It makes me proud to be part of a company that produces a product that folks will go the extra mile to order.

This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.

Five things to remember when revising your regulations

Julia Sullivan,
Creative Director

Salting, spraying and gravel – oh my! My team and I have been working with the Sunset Memorial Park Grounds Superintendent on a new regulations sign.

Many parts of the existing sign are still important, such as always allowing cut flowers and the restrictions we have in place during mowing season. But there were many new issues that I hadn’t even imagined. Some visitors are coming to the memorial park and salting, spraying weed killer and even adding gravel around their loved ones’ memorials. Others insist on leaving statuary next to a memorial, but don’t want it moved when the section is mowed and maintained.

It didn’t take long for the wish list of items to be included on the new sign to grow far too long for any one sign to hold. So how did we whittle down the list without sacrificing information?

First, we gathered the most comprehensive, specific list we could. We included everything that we could ever possibly want families who visit the memorial park to know. Then we got to work doing some strong editing. Here are the top 5 things we kept in mind:

1. Remember your audience is families who trust you to take care of their loved one. It’s easy to get focused on problematic visitors or times that someone violated your regulations. But keep in mind that your regulations sign is probably the first thing most people see when they enter your cemetery or memorial park. What kind of a mood does it set? Is it welcoming or does it sound like a lot of rules for a classroom of misbehaving children? Never forget that your sign is being read by families who are trusting you to take care of their loved one. They want a place to share their most precious memories, and your regulations sign should honor that responsibility.
2. Remember that a sign can’t (and shouldn’t) replace an in-person conversation. It’s certainly a good idea to have your regulations posted clearly, but no sign can ever replace an in-person conversation. If you see someone violating your regulations, don’t expect the sign to take care of it. Instead, practice exactly what you and your staff will say to them to help them understand why the regulations are in place. It may be as simple as explaining the rules and where to find them.
3. Remember to focus on the typical visitor to your cemetery or memorial park, not those that stand out. Just because one person dug holes to plant mums around their loved one’s ground memorial, it doesn’t mean that everyone who comes to your cemetery will do the same thing. When it comes to signs, be sure you’re focusing on the 80 or 90% of well-behaved, well-intentioned visitors. Then, address the outliers one by one. It’s like a classroom. I always hated it when one kid would act out, but everyone would be punished. 
4. Remember to build trust by focusing on what is allowed vs. what is forbidden. Which would you rather read? Option A: No shepherd’s hooks allowed from March 1 to October 1. Option B: Shepherd’s hooks are welcome October 1 to March 1, when we are not mowing.
5. Remember to keep the wording simple and inclusive. When the internet was still young, malicious companies would buy domain names like www.jackspizzastinks.com and then offer to sell them to Jack’s Pizza for a ridiculous amount of money. The problem was that there was a nearly limitless number of potential domain names, so you could never buy them all to keep one from being posted online. In the same vein, you can waste a lot of words on a sign trying to list out all of the items that are allowed or not allowed in your memorial park. Instead, find categories that are self-explanatory. It’s much easier to read “only cut flowers are welcome” instead of “potted plants, hanging baskets, silk flowers, wreaths, statuary, solar lights and stuffed animals are not allowed.” 

This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.