Statement of Purpose:
The
purpose of this Blog will be to document my progress towards my ultimate goal
of visiting 51 funeral homes in all 50 of the States in the United States of
America +Washington D.C. in roughly 52 weeks. The idea being that I will drive
my car to each funeral home and work from Thursday to early Tuesday at each
location. I have experience in the industry so I know that weekends are usually
the busiest times. I'll help with first calls, help set up services, sit in on
arrangements (if the family and funeral home permits me to of course), help dig
graves, anything. The whole time I will document my experiences, write up some
notes on each town or city I visit and interview the staff and the owners of
each funeral home, all while making sure that I portray each funeral home and
community in a positive light.
My
hope is to bring a greater understanding to the public about what it is to live
and work in the funeral industry as well as learning and teaching more about
the rich cultural diversity this beautiful country of ours has to offer.
Growing
up in a non-religious household, I was not informed about religion, religious
practices or customs. About 95% of my current knowledge about such things comes
from my time in the industry. In my experience talking with friends and peers, I’m
not alone. I’m willing to speculate that a large segment of the general public are unaware
of the ways and customs of cultures and religions other than their own or even
how richly diverse and varied the ethnic and cultural landscape of their own
communities really are. I hope to change that with this project in whatever
small way that I can.
I
know what you’re thinking now, that I’m some high-minded idealist hoping to
change the world. That would be nice, but no. At best I’m hoping that I
will be informative and entertaining while filling you, the reader, with the
same type of envy and wanderlust that I experience when reading about road
trips and cross-country travel.
When:
Given
the vast scope and preparation needed in order to complete this project, I’ve
given myself a year to prepare. My hope is to start sometime around the last
week of September, 2014. I'm figuring a year will be enough time to plan
everything, drum up interest in my project and to raise the much needed funds
to do so. I am a college student who will have sizable loans that I'll have to
start paying on or deferring 6 months after I graduate.
I am hoping to raise the funding for my project
through Kickstarter (I’ll Include the link when it’s all up and running) and
through whatever other means necessary, including, but not limited to:
sponsorships through trade magazines, national, state and local industry
organizations, or even from the funeral homes that, through the kindness of
their hearts, choose to host me while I’m on this national adventure. I’ll
layout an itemized breakdown of my proposed budget on the eventual Kickstarter
page as well as later blog postings.
Getting funeral homes to sign on and host me
will be a project in and of itself. Even if my success rate is 1 in 4, that
still means I will have to contact at least 204 funeral homes individually. Though, if
and when a funeral home does sign on to this project (and yes, I’m speaking now
to the segment of my audience that is a potential host funeral home) their funeral
home will possibly benefit from exposure to a national audience. They can even
promote the project and their participation in it locally, with my full
permission, and garner goodwill in their communities. Also, the less-than-a-week
visit will give me enough time to get a good feel for the host facility without
staying so long that I wear out my welcome.
As
I mentioned before, I’m also a college student. I’m a student in the BAS in
Business Management student at Columbia Basin College in Pasco, Washington. My
expected Graduation date is June of 2014. This is another reason for my
year-from-now timeline, I’d like to graduate.
How:
As
you might have guessed from the title, I drive a tan Suzuki, an Aerio in fact.
She is the H.F.S. Laura (I’ll explain in the biographical post next week where
and how she got her name). She’s also a 2006 model year with close to 100k
miles on her. She’s gone with me everywhere in the last seven years.
Bought her new with 23.0 miles on her; she’s been mine her whole life. I’ve
spent more nights than I can count sleeping in either the front or back seats
on long road trips and I am not at all afraid to do so again. If a host funeral
home chooses to allow me to put down a sleeping bag or put me up in a staff
member’s home it will be greatly appreciated, but not at all expected.
I
plan to hit each state in a zig-zag, north, south, north again pattern, as
hopefully illustrated here: (Not sure if I’ll get the link to work. I’m new to
this whole blogging thing)
Given that Google will only let you put in 25
destinations at a time and the fact that I haven’t gotten approval from any
host funeral homes yet, this is obviously just a rough sketch, but you get the
idea, that is, if the link works.
That
is the plan as it now stands, but, like life, it is subject to change due to
practicality, funding, or just good old fashioned reality.
If
you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, spelling or grammatical
corrections (how will I ever learn if no one ever says anything), words of
support or encouragement, confessions of love, hate-filled rantings of utter
distain, or anything else for me, do not hesitate to email me at funhomeambo@gmail.com.
I’ll
try to post a new one of these every week. I am about to start school again in
a few weeks so it may be hard, but I do my best to be vigilant. Feel free to
e-mail me and call me a loser if I don’t live up to my self-imposed deadline
though.
Be
sure to read next week’s entry where I talk a little (quite a bit) about myself, what
lead me into funeral service, and what lead me to decide to do this project.
Thank
you for reading all of this or skipping to the end, whichever is the case.
Johnathan Hove
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