A Proper Burial is Mountain Man's Final Wish

We hear a lot in the news about bad things teenagers are doing these days. Rarely do we hear anything about the good. This is a great story about a group of great teenagers helping to honor a dying man's final wishes. Too many kids today are wrapped up in themselves, or their Playstations, to give their time and money for a noble cause. Not these kids!

Two teenagers from Rabun County High School in Northeast Georgia interviewed Sammy Green, a 73-year-old local who lived alone and had no surviving family. In fact, for the last several years he had been staying with a surrogate family that took him just to provide him shelter. Green granted the interview with the teenagers for a piece for the magazine Foxfire, a student magazine that started in these parts of Appalachia forty years ago.

Near the end of the interview Green told the teenagers he was afraid of being cremated when he dies because his religious beliefs indicated those who were cremated were condemned to hell. It seemed the only redemption for him would be a proper burial with casket. The problem was with no family to speak of, and no pile of money to access, Mr. Green could not afford a proper burial and would likely be cremated.

The enterprising pair of teens took the story back to their editor and initiated a campaign to raise the funds to bury Mr. Green, when the time came. The community responded with cash donations as well as services related to coordinating a funeral for Green. A local church donated a cemetery plot. A granite company offered a headstone. A local funeral home promised their services at a much-reduced amount. The woodshop class at Rabun High School has even embarked on a new project - an old-fashioned pine casket. Local citizens have also taken up collections in stores and gas stations, managing to collect $2800 of the $3100 needed for burial.

Sammy Green was in relatively good health at the time of the interview, and it was hard for some to imagine saving for a death that appeared far off. Unfortunately, Green collapsed just weeks after granting the interview and is now in the care of a local hospice with pneumonia and other respiratory ailments. He is aware of the campaign underway to provide him a funeral and has told caregivers he feels a weight has been lifted.