Brotherly Love: Bringing A Cemetery Back To Life

By Ukee Washington

PHILADELPHIA (CBS)--When Hussain Al-Hindi and his brothers went to see his father's grave at Greenlawn Cemetery in Chester, they could barely see the headstone.

"The grass was actually as tall as I am," Al-Hindi said.

"A lot of vines out here, a lot of brush," said his brother, Ezell Wright.

Greenlawn Cemetery, which dates back to the early 1900s, had fallen into disrepair with no one to care for it. Grass was left uncut and plants were overtaking graves.

Roniesha Strand had noticed it too.

"My dad has been buried here 19 years in December, as well as my grandmom," Strand said.

They are now working together to bring Greenlawn Cemetery back to life, liberating headstones from the brush. They paid their own money for gas and tools.

As word spread, people offered help.

"There are people who don't have a shoestring buried here that have stepped up," said David Keith Wright, brother of Ezell Wright and Hussain Al-Hindi.

They're also getting the grateful thanks of a community.

Volunteer Franklin Holloway said, "90-year-old ladies walking with you, you finding their grave, dropping tears, that's rewarding in and of itself."

There's still work to do. You can still find headstones buried in the earth. Others have tipped over and they are too heavy to lift back into place. But these volunteers plan to keep up repairs out of respect for those who have passed.

"Just for us to make their final resting place a resting place instead of a shambles is very humbling to me," Ezell Wright said.

To find out more about helping with Greenlawn Cemetery, visit www.wrightbrothersplus.webs.com