Volunteers work to uncover graves at historic Georgia cemetery

A community cleanup effort is helping families search for loved ones buried at College View Memorial Cemetery, where overgrowth has hidden graves for years.

COLLEGE PARK, Georgia (WUPA/CNN)— An Atlanta-area woman is hoping a community cleanup project will help her find the graves of several family members at a historic African American cemetery in College Park.

Volunteers with the One Square Mile Project have been working for several months to clear grass, kudzu, brush and trees from College View Memorial Cemetery, whose roots date back to around 1896.

For Ercell Brown, the work is personal.

“My mother Lodi Miller. My grandmother Alice Hunt. My grandfather Eugene Hunt and I have a brother Claude Miller,” Brown said.

Searching for family graves

Brown says she has photographs of broken headstones belonging to her relatives and knows what the markers look like, but she has not yet been able to locate them.

“There is curve where the top of that hill is we are thinking they are buried somewhere over in that area,” Brown said.

She has joined volunteers as they gradually clear the cemetery.

“I have been coming with the group to clean up so we are slowly pulling away some of the overgrowth,” Brown said. “Still haven’t found them yet. But I am praying we are going to find them soon.”

Cleanup reconnects families with loved ones

One Square Mile Project organized a special event in October that allowed people from the community to enter the cemetery and search for loved ones’ graves.

Organizers say nearly 200 people attended, and four people were able to find relatives’ gravesites.

“People have not seen their loved one’s gravesite in decades and just to see them walk the cemetery walk up to the gravesite and pay homage to their loved ones was just phenomenal,” said Gloria Abdullah with One Square Mile Project.

Ella Barnes, also with One Square Mile Project, said the turnout was encouraging because many people connected to the area have moved away.

“I was excited just to see how many people came out because it has been difficult to get the message out that were here cleaning because so many people had moved out of this area,” Barnes said.

Goats helping clear overgrowth

Donors also paid for a herd of goats to help clear kudzu, weeds and woody shrubs covering parts of the cemetery and its tombstones.

Organizers say there is still much more work to be done, and the cleanup has drawn interest from people outside Georgia.

Abdullah said a man recently traveled from Virginia after learning about the project on social media. He was not able to find his loved one’s grave, but she said organizers are hopeful more burial sites will be uncovered as additional areas are cleared.

For Brown, the search continues.

“I am praying we are going to find them soon,” she said.