• Assisting members of our church family with pre-planning and making advance arrangements for their own deaths, and those of their loved ones
• Providing information about alternative end-of-life resources such as home funerals, natural burials, and support services
• Companioning, in love and compassion, members of our church family as they journey toward death’s doorstep
• Assisting members of our church family as they deal with the logistics and arrangements involved in the death of a loved one
• Assisting survivors in the logistics and arrangements involved at the time of the death of a member of our church family
• Providing pastoral resources at the time of death, immediately following the death, and in the days after the death
• Providing a loving, caring, and individually appropriate memorial service for members of our church family or their loved ones
• Supporting and providing resources and direct care for those who wish to care for a deceased loved one at home, wish to create a home funeral for a loved one, or desire a home funeral for themselves
• Providing sacred space, resources, pastoral support and direct care for those who wish to have a home funeral at the church
• Creating a natural burial sanctuary in the Greater Cincinnati area which will protect and preserve a part of our natural environment, while providing space for those in our church community and throughout the Tri-State region who desire a natural or “green” burial

On April 26, 2019, Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary LLC made a down payment and entered into a purchase agreement with Misty Meadows Farm LLC to buy 40 acres of property in Pierce Township, on the east side of Cincinnati just outside I-275. Now that the future location of Heritage Acres has been identified and is under contract, our congregation’s unique green burial initiative has six months to raise the remaining funds necessary to close on the property and begin operation.

“This is the next major step toward our goal of being open to the public by the end of this year,” said Rev. Bill Gupton, President of the Heritage Acres Board. “I am confident that we will soon be able to offer the Cincinnati community this region’s first and only dedicated natural burial ground. Heritage Acres will provide an option previously unavailable anywhere in the Tri-State region. And we are very proud of the fact that our burial ground will preserve and protect 40 beautiful acres of land in its natural state, in a rapidly growing part of town. This is a win-win for our church, consumers, and the environment.”

The Board of Heritage UU Church voted to create Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary as a non-profit green burial cemetery and nature preserve in Nov. 2016. The past two and a half years have seen steady progress, a tireless search for land, and the creation of the business infrastructure and organizational planning necessary to undertake such a project. During 2017, a total of 28 individuals stepped up to join the Heritage Acres Founders Circle. Toward the end of 2018, a capital fund drive was initiated.

To date nearly $200,000 has been raised to support the operation of Heritage Acres and its purchase of property. Beginning in June, professional fundraisers Chanticleer Consulting and their founder Lisa Williams, a former Heritage Church member and past HUUC Board President, will be working with Heritage Acres to complete a capital fund drive by identifying and reaching out to major donors throughout the Cincinnati and Tri-State region.

If you have made a pledge to the Heritage Acres capital fund drive, or have been considering doing so, please contact any member of the Heritage Acres Board – Rev. Bill Gupton, Donna Buckley, Robert James, Laura Knight or Dave Spinney – to help support this preservation project. Spread the word (and fund drive brochures, which are available in the church lobby) among your friends and neighbors.

If you are interested in discussing burial options at Heritage Acres, please speak with Rev. Bill Gupton.

Green burial is coming to Cincinnati, and we are proud to be making it possible!

 

 

The American way of dealing with death is fraught with problems. For several years, Rev. Bill Gupton and others at Heritage Universalist Unitarian Church have worked on many fronts to develop an end-of-life ministry. This ministry has included:

• Hosting a Death Café on numerous occasions, providing a safe space to talk informally with others about that most-taboo subject, death.
• Holding worship services that honor those who have died during the past year.
• Hosting the Death-Positive Film Series, showing each month a movie—fictional story or documentary—that deals in some important or unusual way with death.
• Arranging for the public, Cincinnati debut, at a local theater, of the movie In the Parlor.
• Holding multiple workshops and lectures to increase awareness of the natural burial option.
• Founding the organization Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary, which will eventually provide a place for natural burial.
• Training a select group of church members to perform in-home preparation of a body, for family mourning and natural burial.
• Hosting a performance of threshold singers, who provide song to a person slipping over the threshold of death.
• Providing memorial services to church members and relatives.

For more information on out end-of-life ministry, contact our Senior Minister, Rev. Bill Gupton, at: