Isn’t it about time you took a tour of Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary – Cincinnati’s first and only green burial ground and nature preserve? Located just 10 miles from Heritage Church, in Pierce Township, Heritage Acres is truly beautiful this time of year. We’ve installed a gravel drive and parking area, cut walking paths through the burial areas, and cleared the woods of honeysuckle (mostly). Now is the time to see Heritage Acres and learn what all the excitement is about!

To schedule a visit and tour, contact Rev. Bill Gupton. You won’t believe how wonderful the place is! You can contact Rev. Bill at:

June 2020.

Though slowed somewhat by the COVID-related shutdown and physical distancing guidelines, we are happy to report major developments at Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary. In late April, installation was completed on a gravel access drive from our front entrance at Locust Corner Road (directly across the street from 809 Locust Corner Road). There is now a small parking area just inside the entrance, and the road from it will allow vehicles to reach the edge of our meadow burial area and to park much closer to our wooded burial areas. The construction project also included grading and the installation of several culverts to divert and direct the flow of rainwater.

Meanwhile, numerous volunteers have been hard at work removing honeysuckle and other invasive species, downed trees and broken branches, etc. We are grateful to our April volunteers Donna Buckley, Mark Buckley, Anna Cash, Eric Cash, the Cash children, Zoe Edmiston, Bill Gupton, Sean McBride, Tracy Rossa, Jennifer Sanders, Patrick Sanders, John Sandman, Julia Sandman, Julie Skiff, Andrea Sloan, Larry Sloan, Dave Small, Tracy Jo Small and Eva Sofge (and hope we didn’t leave anyone out of this ever-growing list)! If you would like to spend some time outdoors, in as beautiful a setting as one can imagine, please contact Rev. Bill Gupton to learn more about volunteering.

If you’ve never been to Heritage Acres, or if you would like to take a tour of with an eye toward pre-planning, again please contact Rev. Bill to schedule a meeting at the property. We are now offering private tours for families (or very small 2-4 person groups). We will be maintaining proper physical distancing protocols while allowing folks to see the progress that has been made at our natural burial ground. And while we are not yet “open to the public,” members of the Heritage Church community can now make pre-arrangements including purchasing burial rights for either body burial or cremation burial.

Watch for an announcement about the official opening of Heritage Acres, hopefully sometime in the months ahead.

Article 4/24/2020.

Our Senior Minister, Rev. Bill Gupton, is on sabbatical. Much of his sabbatical time will be spent preparing for the opening of Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary. He has provided these pictures of the land, taken in the fall and early winter of 2019.

Posted February 14, 2020.

As Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary prepares to open to the public this spring, there remains a great deal of work to be done. To that end, Heritage Acres is forming teams of individuals who will support that work.

If you have a skill set or interest in helping Heritage Acres, this is your chance to get involved!
Please consider stepping up to become a member of one or more of the following teams:

Administrative Team
Burial and Funeral Services Team
Communications and Promotion Team
Community Relations Team
Fundraising Team
Infrastructure Team
Land Management Team

To volunteer, go to https://www.heritageacresmemorial.org/contact-us/ or contact Vice-President Donna Buckley. Indicate which team(s) interest you, and what skills you hope to bring to the work. Thank you!

On October 10, 2019, Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary purchased 40 acres located at 796 Locust Corner Road in Pierce Township, Ohio, completing a three-year search for land and making Heritage Acres a reality. “It feels wonderful to be ‘grounded’ in this very special place,” said Rev. Bill Gupton, President of Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary LLC.

“This day would not have been possible without the generous support of more than 200 individual donors. Thanks to you, we were able to buy this beautiful property without a mortgage, and without incurring interest payments.” He also expressed gratitude to the members of the Heritage Acres Founders Circle (listed below), the visionaries who came forward to make the initial donations to get the Heritage Acres project started.

Heritage Acres will now begin working with a natural burial consulting firm as it prepares to open to the public by the summer of 2020. “We had intended to be open by the end of this year,” Gupton said, “but the shift from property acquisition to becoming operational has brought new layers of complexity to the process. Luckily, we have great resources available to us, including the support and expertise of many in the national green burial movement who are cheering us on and want us to succeed.”

You can learn more at the Heritage Acres website. Watch this newsletter, as well as the Heritage Acres monthly e-newsletter, for updates.

Heritage Acres Founders Circle

Antoinette and Richard Asimus
Bob and Connie Booth
Maureen Boylan
Forrest Brandt and Kathy Wade
Donna and Mark Buckley
Frank Collins and Louise Lawarre
Gretchen and Rowley Elliston
Peg Fay-Feder and Sam Feder
Bill Gupton and Jennifer Sanders
Ann and Hank Jarboe
Bob and Ellie Lamb
Joann Meyer
John and Shannon Murley
Julia Sandman
Tracy Jo Small
Joan and Mark Stoffregen
Les and Steph Tacy

 

As Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary enters the final stretch of fundraising to complete its purchase of 40 acres in Pierce Township next month, our unique green burial project has been accepted into the Faithify program. Faithify is a Unitarian Universalist crowdfunding platform that encourages UUs from all over the world to support innovative programs created by UU churches and groups. We are proud to be among the select projects that Faithify has chosen to promote.

It is important that we demonstrate widespread support for our Faithify project, so please visit our campaign at Growing Green Burial the UU Way and give generously. Then, watch the Heirloom and your church bulletin and announcements next month for the grand announcement of our closing date on our Heritage Acres property. Thanks to all who have made this possible!

September 2019.