Loved ones, volunteers come together to clean up overgrown grounds of local cemetery

DREXEL — Tuesday volunteers were back out cleaning up gravesites at Bearcreek Cemetery.

News Center 7 previously reported that people were upset because the grounds were overgrown, and Tuesday that still seemed to be the case.

“Our veterans and our loved ones shouldn’t be going through something like this,” Tonie Sims said.

Sims said she saw the condition of the cemetery where her daughter and great-grandmother are buried on social media.

She stopped by Tuesday morning to see for herself.

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“When we pulled in, I got tears,” she said.

Sims was pushing a lawn mower in and out of the graves near where her family was buried.

That’s when she noticed the land near her family’s graves had flooded and the corners of the grave were raised.

“That’s not right because (the) people in (the) graves don’t deserve that, to get floated away,” Sims said.

Andrew Phillips came out to the cemetery with his husband who has family buried in the cemetery to help clean up the graves.

>> PREVIOUS COVERAGE: ‘It’s just terrible;’ Families say they’re frustrated with lack of upkeep at local cemetery

“They can’t come and see their loved ones without having to trudge through waist-high grass. So there are people who are coming together to try to make this place look good and be the memorial site that it should be,” Phillips said.

A spokesperson with the Ohio Department of Commerce confirmed there are six open complaints against Bearcreek Cemetery.

News Center 7 reached out to the owners of the cemetery who said they would speak Tuesday afternoon, we have not heard back since.

We will update this story if we receive a response.

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