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Bernard E. Stoecklein, Jr, chairman and CEO of CMS Mid-Atlantic, Inc.,
addressed the New Jersey Cemetery Association's membership on April 25, 2007
discussing Funding for Cemeteries with Limited Resources.
Approximately 100 New Jersey cemeterians were in attendance during
Stoecklein's 35-minute presentation. He began discussing the vital role
cemeteries play in our communities. He then outlined how the
cemeteries that operate with limited resources will someday be filled with
overgrowth and failing infrastructure that will cause terrible sorrow for the
families of loved ones buried in them.
Stoecklein told the cemetery representatives in attendance that as many as
65% of the cemeteries in New Jersey have limited resources in the form of
capital, income, property and trust funds. He explained that these
cemeteries can turn themselves around when caring people take the initiative to
help.
"It only takes one to put ten to flight as the bible says and the ten can put
ten thousand to flight," he said.
He continued saying that to turn a cemetery around, it takes meetings and
creation of a business plan.
Stoecklein then explained the nature of a 501(c)(3) organizations and how
they relate to cemeteries.
He concluded his presentation by saying, "Cemeteries are the collective
representations which reflect and express many of the community's beliefs and
values about what kind of society it is, the type of people who live there and
where they fit in the secular and sectarian world of the living and the
spiritual society of those who died."
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