Saturday is generally seen as a day to sleep late and relax forteenagers, but yesterday was an exception for a few dozen membersof a youth group at a local church.

Around 30 young people from Fair River Baptist Church got upearly Saturday to improve their community by bringing beauty to thechurch’s cemetery.

“We got to thinking about what we could do around the communityand we noticed the cemetery needed some work, so we decided itwould be our project,” said Chris Turnage, the church’s youthdirector.

Their idea for a community service project was aided by acommunity pride grant from the Chevron Corporation and sponsored by4-H.

“We used the grant to buy the plants and put up some latticework,” said Don Hodge, chairman of the deacons.

The youth group was so excited about the work day that they allarrived before the 8 a.m. start time with plenty of energy.

Following a prayer, they immediately started on their way tocreating and helping preserve the large cemetery behind thechurch.

They first planted Crepe myrtles, rose bushes and shrubbery onthe outskirts to make the area more pleasing to the eye.

“We did some of of the pre-work for them, like digging theholes, but they got to put all the plants in,” said Hodge.

Members of the youth group, along with several adult churchmembers, then sanded and cleaned the rails outlining thecemetery.

They also cleaned and repaired a number of tombstones, with thehelp of Danny Ladner, who has years of experience restoringtombstones.

“I usually restore old cemeteries and this one had a lot of oldmarkers in it,” said Ladner, who was brought into the project bycemetery caretaker Robert Fugler.

Throughout the day students continuously looked for more ways tohelp, and were willing to work as long as it took to get theproject completed.

“They have responded well,” said Turnage. “Most of them feelthat doing community service is very rewarding and is a funchallenge.”

Most of the work was completed by the end of the day, with theexception of a bonus to the project.

“We’re also going to map the cemetery, logging all the dates onthe tombstones,” said Turnage.