YOUNGSTOWN Group helps victims' kin with burial costs

Graveside markers provided closure to grieving families, said the organizer.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The average cost of burying a loved one is around $5,000 with the services, flowers, burial site and other expenses.
Some people, especially those dealing with the unexpected death of a relatively young person, cannot afford to cover such things as graveside markers. Area funeral director Lynn Phillips, however, is hoping to change that.
Phillips and a group of parents who have lost their kids to violent crime have started Comfort Ministries, a nonprofit organization that buys headstones for families who have lost someone to violent crime and cannot afford to mark the grave site.
Closure
According to Phillips, the organization is about more than the stone that goes into a marker on someone's final resting place -- it is also about closure.
"When people lose someone -- especially to homicide, because that is a different kind of death in terms of dealing with it -- and they cannot afford a headstone, they are stuck at that point in the grieving process, feeling guilty or feeling as if they did not properly provide for that loved one," said Phillips.
Phillips said the program, for now, will be limited to families dealing with a loss to violent crime. She anticipates serving about 30 families a year in the program and said it does not matter what funeral home handles the burial arrangements.
Warren Dietz of Artcraft Memorials on the city's East Side has agreed to supply the monuments to the program at cost.
Dietz said headstones start at about $400. Design costs for special requests can raise the price, he said.
Headstones purchased through the program will be basic, but Phillips said they will be sufficient in honoring the deceased and helping the family in the grieving process.
Emotional help
Those requesting headstones through the program will be dealing with a sudden violent death and that, said Phillips, often means dealing with police investigations, court proceedings and sometimes seeing crime scene photos. Phillips is therefore looking to add another dimension of help.
She has joined forces with parents who have lost a child to violence and want to help others with the emotional aspect of the loss.
"Some of these families will be dealing with things that most people don't want to have to deal with, but the volunteers have been there and can more easily relate to what these families are going through," she said.
Still, Phillips hopes the program eventually fails because of lack of need. She anticipates that most of the headstones will be purchased for young people under 25 because they are least likely to carry insurance and are often the victims of violent crime.
The best-case scenario, she said, would be for the violent crimes to stop and the need for a program to purchase headstones for its victims to go away as well.
jgoodwin@vindy.com