As part of the Presidential Inauguration and Martin Luther King Day weekend, volunteers around the country got together Saturday to give back on the National Day of Service.

“The whole weekend is dedicated to service and improving the quality of life in your own community,” volunteer Anne Doan said.
Organizers had three events in Santa Cruz County, Arizona Saturday—including a neighborhood cleanup in Tubac and a flag etiquette class in Nogales. Also, in town, about ten people got together to landscape the municipal cemetery.
“The cemetery is a very historic part of our community and people come and visit often,” Doan said. “It just needed to be picked up, cleaned up— and just looking nice for the visitors. “
One visitor is Ruth Mollman, of Newcastle, Colorado. The last time she was at the Nogales Cemetery was about 40 years ago, when she would play with her sister Renee’ Cullen—a librarian at Peña Blanca Elementary School.
The two said they would look at the graves and scare each other when they would pretend to see a deceased person’s hair through the cracks. But even then—they felt protected by the angel statues on some graves.
“This was our playground, clearly, we’re still playing here,” Curren said.
“And to come this far over was really adventurous, … we’d go behind the building in case something got us.
The two picked the most unkempt plot and manicured it.
“We’re making it a place a ghost would be proud to haunt,” she said.
“This is our legacy and the people who are laying under the ground…are the people who made this community possible,” she said. ”It’s an honor to keep it going for the next generation of children at play.”

Note: Anne Doan is my mother.

Downloadable version w/o lower thirds is at https://vimeo.com/57770299