By 9 a.m., 26 community members ä both village representatives and residents ä gathered at the Pine Hill Cemetery in Gowanda to clean up the enormous amount of fallen leaves that the property collects in the fall. The effort was led by Mayor Dave Smith, his wife Jill, who is the treasurer of the cemetery board, and Scott Campbell, president of the cemetery board.

This year marks the first leaf raking volunteer event in the village. The leaves are usually taken out every year by prisoners, but because of the global pandemic, they were not released for that type of work this year. This led to the cemetery board wondering how they would be able to get the manpower to move all of the leaves collected in the cemetery, which led Jill and Dave to suggest a volunteer event.

“We thought it would be a great idea to get the whole community involved while helping out the cemetery at the same time,” Dave Smith said. “We knew the community would come out to support and they did. We are so grateful for that.”

Also volunteering were eight Gowanda Police Department representatives, including police officers, those in the police academy, and Police Chief Dennis Feldmann.

Gowanda Police Chief Dennis Feldmann partook in the volunteer event on Saturday as well.

“We had young children, to people in their 80s. It was such a fun time and benefited Gowanda and the cemetery at the same time,” Smith said. “We even had a former Gowanda resident, Mary Thomas, who now lives in Texas donate to the cause.”

Campbell and Smith encourage anyone interested in seeing the cemetery to go down and visit. Donations are also always welcome and can be directed to one of the board members on their website, gowandapinehillcemetery.com/.

“Jill and I wanted to thank the hard working community volunteers that joined us as we cleaned Pine Hill Cemetery of its numerous leaves,” Smith said. “The work of all of you represents the pride and love for your community that makes me so proud to be your mayor.”