Statewide grant helps Fairbury cemetery begin planting 50 new trees

Furnished through federal funding that every state can then deliver to projects they deem worthy, a Southeast Nebraska cemetery now has the ability to make its newest plot of land more beautiful and more safe.

50 new trees of about a dozen different species are being planted in the cemetery in Fairbury starting this week.

The project is made possible through the Urban and Community Forestry Grant, originated nationally by the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture, and facilitated locally by the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum.

"Our mission at the Statewide Arboretum is to plant native plants and create more resilient communities all across the state.  We’re very impactful in getting resources out to these communities, we’re really pushing that envelope on native plantings, beautifying but also making our land more ecologically productive," said John Woodworth, an assistant community forester with the Arboretum. 

All the trees were raised in the Great Plains Nursery in Weston and then delivered and introduced to Fairbury this week, where, decades from now, they will grow to match the size of those across the recently repaved roads, providing shelter for the cemetery plots and for natural wildlife.

"A cemetery has to have trees, and we have a lot of old trees out there, so we’re in the process of changing that," said Charley Endorf, a member of the cemetery board, when the cemetery's grant approval was initially announced. "The old trees are dead, they need to be taken down, and we don’t have the ability to do that ourselves. So we needed someone with insurance to come in and take down those big, oak trees without damaging stones as they come down. And in the meantime, you take out trees like that you gotta plant new ones too, so with the new addition down there we need those new trees on the south side."

"That's how this fits in with us: we’re looking for places like this that are public entities, that are going out for this money, that’ll improve their storm water runoff, wildlife habitats, shade, a bunch of aspects of tree planting," Woodworth said. "But also, when you see an aging tree canopy in a place like this...some places don’t have the funding to remove trees, or to take care of trees. This grant covers all of that." 

In addition to the 50 new trees planted around the property, the grant will help the cemetery safely remove ten dying trees, which the Arboretum says in an important part of the process.

"They’re trying to accomplish a little bit of catching up on that aging tree canopy, they’ve got some trees that need to be removed, they’ve got several ash trees that have been impacted by the Emerald Ash bore, they’ve got some old pin oaks that are starting to hit that decay spiral, showing signs of decay – they’re just hazardous and unsafe," Woodworth said. "And when it’s a place like this where people come and mourn family members, and it’s more of a solemn place, you don’t want them to be worried about a fallen tree or limb when they’re coming to pay their respects to family members. For them, it’s a lot about beautification, making this, aesthetically, a place you want to go to mourn."

The grant also covers the cost of workforce development, which will allow the Fairbury cemetery to hire a local high schooler and give them hands-on experience learning to care for both the new and existing trees on the property.

And news of the grant has already spread: it inspired one Fairbury resident to personally foot the cost of refurbishing the area around the cemetery's columbarium, which will see new trees, bushes and flowers planted around it over the course of this month.

More information on other regions that are eligible for the Urban and Community Forestry Grant can be found at plantnebraska.org.