Help Support Descendants of Olivewood
Descendants of Olivewood has many cemetery restoration and preservation, archaeological, historical, and educational projects in the works. Unfortunately, everything we do requires either financial support or physical labor from you. You can help by donating using the link below, or read more to see how you can volunteer.
You can also help Olivewood just by shopping at Amazon. By starting your Amazon shopping cart using the search widget on the right, Descendants of Olivewood receive 4% of your purchase at no extra cost to you.
Or if you already shop at Krogers, you can bring this form into your local store to link your Krogers card to the Descendants of Olivewood. Your shopping will help us bring home a share of Krogers annual Neighbor to Neighbor donations.
How to Volunteer
While donations are important, we can always use your help in other ways:
- Mowing and General Grounds Maintenance
- Historical Research
Many of our friends first discover Olivewood Cemetery in the process of doing genealogical research on their own. If you enjoy doing historical research or want to discover part of your own past, we will welcome your help and guide you to useful resources.
- Identifying Wildlife
Olivewood Cemetery sits on a curve of White Oak Bayou and as a result is populated by a wide array of flora and fauna. We are working with volunteers to identify native and introduced species in the area so we can provide educational materials to our visitors, and to protect as much native habitat as possible.
- Conducting Surveys
As we clear more and more overgrowth from the full extent of the cemetery, we uncover gravesites that we have never seen before. We are working on GIS survey/mapping of all known gravesites, and need help with data collection and documenting this information.
- Collecting Oral Histories
Olivewood Cemetery was established in 1875, and conducted burials through the 1950s. While we know that the stories of many of the oldest of the interred have been lost, we hope to be able to capture as many of the stories of the rest of Olivewood's residents as possible. To that end, we need to find more descendants and relatives of those buried in Olivewood, as well as volunteers to help collect their stories.
- Fundraising
Some people are able to give, but others are good at "getting". If you have ideas or skills in fundraising (event planning, grant writing, etc.) we can always use your help.
Olivewood is located next to White Oak Bayou, and is therefore rather lush in its flora. That's a nice way of saying that it takes about a week in the summer to be overrun with vegetation. Beyond general mowing and weedwhacking, we would like to start beautification of individual plots and taming some of the old landscaping that has run wild.
We welcome individuals and groups for sponsored clean up days, or to join us for a general clean-up day.
Please contact us if you or your group would like to volunteer or participate in any of the above or to hear about upcoming events.
