Grove Restoration Project

.
Hello everyone, and hello again to all of you that we spoke to at the conference! It was a pleasure meeting all of you that stopped by our table and it was wonderful to see some of our old friends as well. Time can go by so quickly and we look forward to keeping in touch with all of you for many years to come.

A special thank you goes out to not only Ursula Bielski and Michael McDowell for bringing together such a great event but also to all the speakers that took the time to come out and to Andrew Wognum for his help with the banner and pamphlets promoting the GRP.

We hope to see you all again next year!

.
On October 27th 2007 the Grove Restoration Project will be exhibiting at the first annual Chicago Ghost Conference hosted by Ursula Bielski and Michael McDowell. If you happen to be attending the conference be sure to stop by our table to say hello!

For more information be sure to visit the Chicago Hauntings web site.

.
The turn out for the September 16th clean up was a success. A lot of garbage was removed and everyone had a wonderful time meeting each other.

No more than a couple of weeks after the event the Forest Preserve District came out to remove the fallen trees on the main path leading to the cemetery. The Forest Preserve District also did some removal of weeds along the path which not only makes the area look nice but also gives visitors more room as they make their journey toward the cemetery. The main entrance to the path was taken care of as well and it looks better than it has in at least 10 years.

A special thank you goes out to the volunteers that showed up to help ensure a great success! But lets not forget the Real Estate Management Office of Cook County for their assistance. Without them, as well as their friends of the Forest Preserve District, we would all have a much harder time bringing back peace and harmony to the area.

.
Hello everyone! This years clean-up will be a little more relaxing than others. It will only consist of picking up trash left by visitors and no weeds or other items will be removed. This is primarily caused by a couple of trees that have fallen onto the pathway as well as a couple of others that have caused damage to the fence surrounding the cemetery. All of these trees will need to be removed by the Forest Preserve District because we don’t have permission. But we can still use this opportunity to make a difference! You will want to bring a pair of gloves and a few heavy duty trash bags. There will be a small number of gloves available to those who don’t have any so please bring a pair if you can. Please don’t bring any other items for this particular date as they won’t be needed.

For those of you attending please remember that you must sign a waiver if you wish to participate. If you are under the age of 18 please review the section on becoming a volunteer. If you have any questions please feel free to email a coordinator.

.
A permit to help clean up the cemetery has been issued for September 16th 2007. The time frame that has been granted is between 8 AM and 4 PM. Details on what volunteers may want to bring and any other relevant information will be announced shortly.

We apologize for the short notice and look forward to meeting everyone!

.
Due to current weather conditions the September 23rd clean-up will need to be canceled. The thunderstorms expected to pass through the area will cause the cemetery to become saturated in too much water making the removal of weeds very difficult.

There are no other clean-ups expected for 2006. We appreciate all of you that have emailed in regards to the 23rd and we hope to see you all in 2007!

.
A permit to help clean up the cemetery has been issued for September 23rd 2006. The time frame that has been granted is between 8 AM and 4 PM. Details on what volunteers may want to bring and any other relevant information will be announced shortly.

.
The turn out for the September 9th clean-up was excellent. No thunderstorms came through while all the volunteers worked hard and made more improvements to the cemetery. A member of the Newman family had come to help out as well and expressed a warm appreciation for those who came to help take care of her departed ones. All of the volunteers should feel very proud of themselves! Besides the enjoyment of doing something good for a place that has been severely neglected, many facets of nature were experienced such as frogs, toads, humming birds, deer, snakes, mice, and even a very large, colorful, beautiful spider that is rarely seen showed itself as the weeds were trimmed.

Although the cemetery still has a long way to go it was extremely wonderful to see so many people show up in the early morning hours. A lot was accomplished early in the day and if it wasn’t for a piece of rental equipment breaking down much more could have been taken care of. A special thank you goes out to those of you who attended and to those of you who truly wanted to make it but couldn’t due to various circumstances.

We hope to see all of you again next year and welcome many more volunteers to join in and help make every clean-up a success. Also, be sure to review some of the improvements by visiting the photo gallery. We can always use a dedicated photographer to go around and take countless photographs so don’t be shy and volunteer today!

.
There is the possibility of showers and thunderstorms for the September 9th clean-up. If you are a volunteer coming from out-of-state you may not want to attend in order to avoid any inconveniences that this may cause. At the moment the forecast states that there is a 40% chance of thunderstorms which will most likely occur near the afternoon. If future forecasts report a higher percentage then there will be no choice but to cancel and the clean-up will be reschedule for the next day, September 10th. If the area becomes too saturated in rain then it will make it difficult to perform any sort of clean-up on the 10th. In that case we may be able to reschedule the event toward the end of the month on the 23rd.

.
The time frame that has been granted for the clean-up on September 9th is between 8 AM and 4 PM.

For those of you attending please remember that you must sign a waiver if you wish to participate. If you are under the age of 18 please review the section on becoming a volunteer. If you have any questions please feel free to email a coordinator.