Letter to The Editor:
As the founder of Caring Cause, I realize the majority of Tulare residents aren’t aware of our Facebook Group. Therefore, I’d like to tell the community a little bit about Caring Cause and invite them to join.
Originally, the name of our group was Caring Cause – Stop Neglect at Tulare Public Cemetery and was formed on July 5, 2016. Back then the cemetery grounds were in deplorable conditions and each time I visited the cemetery it seemed things had just deteriorated even more since my previous visit. Finally, I decided something had to be done and Caring Cause was formed. In less than a month we had over 400 members who shared the same concerns and now we have over 1,700 members.
On July 21, 2016 myself and other members of Caring Cause attended the first of many Board of Trustees meetings to express various issues concerning the maintenance of the cemetery grounds such as: Dead lawn in large areas of the cemetery, lack of proper mowing and edging, neglected shrubs and shrubs, broken and chipped headstones and sinking graves (a list of 13 graves were reported at this first meeting).
While Caring Cause was formed due to the neglect of the grounds, eventually it was discovered the office was also lacking in various areas such as: There were no By-Laws, no employee job descriptions and no modernization of bookkeeping and payables which was being done manually.
Since the formation of Caring Cause many improvements to both Kern and North Cemeteries have been made along with improvements in the office. While we believe Caring Cause was instrumental in achieving these improvements nothing would have changed without the efforts of the Board of Trustees (some past and current) and the hardworking cemetery crew so a big thanks to all for your efforts! Due to these improvements the name of Caring Cause was changed to: Caring Cause – Support Tulare Public Cemetery.
Caring Cause ha generally had a good relationship with most of those that have or do serve on the Boar of trustees. Although in February two disturbing issues occurred…one was receiving a private message from a trustee stating “You just put the final nail in the coffin of CC”. Then a few days later another trustee called and requested I close down the Caring Cause Facebook page as “Caring Cause had served its purpose and was only causing negativity for the cemetery”. I’d like to state this trustee admitted they had never seen the Caring Cause Facebook page
Though one trustee, unfamiliar with the Facebook platform asked me to delete the Caring Cause page and another told me “You just put the final nail in the coffin of CC” when I changed the administration policies, Caring Cause has not finished its work. Caring Cause was the catalyst for many positive changes in the board and at the cemetery in the pasts three and half years, but anyone attending the meetings or watching via live stream can see many more improvements are needed.
Caring Cause – Support Tulare Public Cemetery will continue to go forth and be the advocate for the community of Tulare with cemetery issues. We will do our utmost to support the Board of Trustees and employees, however, we will hold them accountable just as we’ve always done since the formation of Caring Cause.
Again, we invite anyone desiring to join Caring Cause to go to our Facebook page and request to join.
Sincerely,
Elaine Hollingsworth, Founder
Caring Cause