Volunteers Needed
For Two Community Service Projects
This Saturday, April 30
HGS Members Supporting Houston
Project Respect - Evergreen Cemetery"
Join geoarcheologist Jim Foradas and others on Saturday, April 30 from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm for multiple duties at the Evergreen Negro Cemetery. It''s a Civil-War era slave and freedmen cemetery on the site of an old cotton plantation that we are are helping get declared as a historical landmark by the Texas Historical Commission. It is located at Lockwood & Market - 2 miles east of downtown off I-10 at the Lockwood exit.
Projects include:
- Assist with GPS gridding operations with a Trimble 5600 Total Station
- Monitor the fence post excavations for archaeology and soil stratigraphy documentation
- Mowing and trimming
- Perimeter wood fence construction
- Digital camera documentation of headstones (forms provided)
Jim Foradas of the geoarchaeological and anthropological firm of HRA Gray and Pape will be on site Saturday, April 30 using a Trimble GPS Station courtesy of J.T. Byrne, Vice President of Western Data Systems to begin to generate a detailed digital grid rather than a string grid. This may be an opportunity for HGS members to learn to use of the instrument. The data will be downloaded onto a laptop to make the project area maps in house.
Volunteers are needed to monitor the tractor-auger fence post excavations in order to ensure no human remains are impacted. In addition, the posthole excavations can be used to map local soil stratigraphy. HRA Gray and Pape can provide forms for describing post-hole tests and screens for systematic excavation of the holes. Digital cameras are encouraged and forms that can be used to record photographs of headstones and other features of the cemetery will be provided.
Questions? Call or e-mail Steve Levine at (281) 293-3896 or (281) 221-5529 for further details.
While you are there Saturday, be sure to get your free HGS-volunteer T-shirt!!
"Rebuilding Houston Together"
We will be working on "Rebuilding Houston Together" this Saturday April 30th, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm for a home repair project. The address is 2620 Live Oak in the 3rd Ward.
HGS members who would like to come out and join us are welcome. Plenty of small jobs to do, like carpentry, prepping, painting and yard clean up. For more details, you may call HGS member Walter Light on his cell phone at (713) 823-8288. Again, HGS-volunteer T-shirts will be available.
I''ll see you there!
Steve Levine
Published 28 April, 2005