At Oak Grove Cemetery, a football team traded the field for drains and brickwork

On Thursday morning in Marietta, Ohio, players from Marietta College's football team joined community volunteers in Oak Grove Cemetery with shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows. The group cleared drainage channels and started on a brick sidewalk after recent, frequent rainstorms had shifted soil and debris around the grounds. Marietta resident Roger Kalter led the effort. 1

A cemetery cleanup can sound like a vague good deed until the work comes into view. On this morning, the work had edges: stone-lined drains, historic bricks, tools that had to be used carefully, and a 230-foot strip of sidewalk that needed clearing. 1

Kalter had brought a Marietta College football team to Oak Grove Cemetery before. About 15 years ago, he worked alongside the team and then-head coach Andy Waddle on a project that reset roughly 330 headstones. Tom Hinkle, now the football program's head coach, had been a student player on that earlier visit. 1

Hinkle remembered how the day felt as a student. He said he wanted his present-day players to have the same experience of helping their community, along with lessons that last beyond a season. The program has 112 players and 13 coaches and staff, a capacity that can turn a small repair project into a full morning of work. 1

Kalter described the drainage work as the harder part of the day. The historic bricks lining the drains require appropriate tools, he said. Kalter had been bringing those tools in a few at a time, while the volunteers cleared the channels and the sidewalk. 1

The project also had help from beyond the cemetery gates. Community donations supplied tools such as shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows. Bridgeport Equipment, Greenleaf Landscapes, Miller Memorials and Marietta College Facilities donated equipment, according to Kalter. 1

The group photo captures the size of the crew. The morning also connected a coach who had volunteered there as a student, a resident who had led an earlier cemetery project, and players learning the place through the work it needed. 1

Kalter put his approach simply: "I dream big and work hard." He said he had carried out community projects in Marietta since 1991, including The Incredible Community Playground Project. At Oak Grove, his immediate goal was to get people around the work and let them see it. 1

I keep returning to the 230 feet of brick path. Kalter said the volunteers set out to clear that strip alongside their drainage work. 1 The path offers a small enough distance to picture: a line of old bricks, buckets, shovels and people taking turns. Hinkle said he hoped players would carry the feeling of helping the community with them. Thursday put that lesson in their hands: a real job, a shared place and enough people to move it forward. 1