Hillcrest Heritage Festival

This event has already occurred. The page is being maintained for archival purposes.

WHEN IS IT?

Saturday, May 16, 2009
10:00am until 4:00pm, with remarks and announcements at 12 Noon.
(Rain Date Sunday, May 17 at 1:00pm)

WHERE IS IT?

Hillcrest Cemetery
2200 block of Stanton Road
East Point, GA 30344
MAP

WHAT IS IT?

This event is a celebration of the completion of our original task of clearing the overgrowth from all graves at Hillcrest, in appreciation to all our volunteers and donors for making it possible, and in remembrance of why this place exists and deserves to be well-maintained. We want to invite everyone affiliated with Hillcrest to come together for a day...families, friends, volunteers, donors, local officials and the community at large...to share stories with one another, meet old friends and strangers alike, and enjoy some activities together, including:

• Guided walking tours of the oldest section of the cemetery
• Demonstrations of the proper care and cleaning of memorial stonework
• Groundbreaking for the new Hillcrest Veterans Memorial
• Planning for the next volunteer projects at Hillcrest
• Recognition of volunteers and donors
• Special announcements, and more!

While this is not a scheduled volunteer work day at Hillcrest, if you wish to use this occasion to tend to your family lot, please feel free to do so! We will bring a small supply of tools so you don't have to, including gloves, rakes, brooms, and other hand tools.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

We encourage you to visit the newly updated exhibits at the East Point Historical Society Museum while you are in town, featuing displays on East Point's schools, families and business community over the years. They will be open extended hours on May 16 for your convenience.

Also, please visit one of our great downtown businesses for a meal while here. There are now over a dozen restaurants downtown, including Thumbe Up Diner, Oz Pizza, Q's Southern Kitchen, the Corner Tavern, and of course, Big Nick's Place.

FUNDING:

In 2008, we applied for a heritage tourism grant offered by the state (details below) for a program like this. We received $950.00, which we are matching for a total of $1900, nearly all of which was for publicizing this event via mail, newspaper advertising, email, word of mouth and the Web. This is the first time we have used our general funds for a purpose other than direct improvement at Hillcrest. We feel this is appropriate as we need to be in touch with more families across the country, particularly in the greater Atlanta area. We know many families quit visiting when the cemetery became overgrown. It is time to get the word out to everyone that Hillcrest is back. In addition, family contributions make up almost all of our funds, and we have been seeing lower donations in the past couple of years, so we need to reach out to the larger Hillcrest family in order to continue our work at the current level.

This project has been funded with the assistance of a matching grant-in-aid from the State of Georgia, Department of Natural Resources, through the Historic Preservation Division, and the Tourism Division, Georgia Department of Economic Development, under the provisions of the Historic Cemetery Heritage Tourism Grant Program.

And donations from the
families of Hillcrest Cemetery

©2009 Hillcrest Cemetery Memorial Association, Inc.