815 Stonecrafters dedicated to preserving veterans’ graves in Rockford

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — 815 Stonecrafters, a group of Rockford-based volunteers, spent Sunday making sure Civil War veterans are honored by cleaning their headstones.

“I come from a long family of veterans, so veterans have a special place in my heart. And so I feel sometimes they are sometimes forgotten about. And that’s really why we really focus on, veterans,” said founder Janie Jenkin.

Since May, the group has been cleaning headstones at Cedar Bluff Cemetery, 1200 Rural Street.

“I’ve had a family in California reach out to me saying, hey, I saw that you cleaned the gravestone,” said Jenkin. “It was uploaded on Find a Grave, that it was recently cleaned. Thank you so much for doing that.”

Jenkin said she hopes to inspire her volunteers, and pass along the knowledge of how to keep the headstones clean.

“With all the volunteers that showed up yesterday, we knocked out of the park every single gravestone that we had marked, which was about 32 graves. So that was very, very appreciative that they came on out and helped us do that,” Jenkin said. “Today, we are just trying to clean up the cemetery a little bit, trying to get some of these headstones that are surrounding these veterans, cleaned up. So it just looks a little bit nicer.”