The recent news, of the senseless acts of vandalism at Oakdale Cemetery, has disturbed many members of our community. Many, if not all of us, have laid to rest family and/or friends in the shade of Oakdale's peaceful environment. Some of us will even be buried there someday. This is why we all need to come together and do something to help arrest the disturbed individuals who did this to us.
I say "us" because this wasn't just done to Oakdale, it was
done to our entire community. If a cemetery does not carry a sacred status
among us, what does? A person that can do something like what was done
to the 100 or so grave markers in Oakdale, would have absolutely no reservations
about committing any crime whatsoever against me, you, our children, our
families and our neighbors. These are the type of individuals that need
to be caught, and brought to justice right away.
My brother Marc Benson has over 24 years of experience dealing with these
sort of criminals and suggested Monday afternoon that a hefty reward be
offered to work on the greedy minds of the perpetrators or witnesses.
He has experience with guilty people turning in an innocent person, attempting
to frame them before that friend turns on him. Girlfriends will get mad
and will try to get even with their boyfriend by turning him in. Sometimes
if the reward is high enough the guilty will turn themselves in because
they cannot trust their friends to keep their mouths shut. A high reward
is a step in the right direction. The higher the better.
I have spoken directly with many of you already and I believe we can easily
raise $5,000. Is $5,000 too much money? Would
$10,000 be better? Possibly. But funds need to be raised to help restore
and protect Oakdale, if we can raise or commit to more than $5,000, then
we can perhaps use that extra money to create a fundraising campaign to
help with the cost to protect this from happening again.
All donations are tax deductible under Oakdale's 501(c) nonprofit organization.
You can be anonymous or not. There are benefits of being either. You can
choose to participate personally or through your business. You can personally
guarantee an amount as an incentive for you to go out and raise that money
elsewhere. At the very least you should work to inform others about this
endeavor and support it in conversation or with emails within your close
circle of friends.
The more money we can raise, the more we can do to help. As you can imagine
Oakdale is in serious need for funding to recover and this and any money
we can raise will a big step in helping them.
I will be in contact with Eric Kozen the Superintendent of Oakdale Cemetery
and Detective Odum of the Wilmington Police Department to gather some
background and pertinent information that I will need to develop a proper
Press Release for the announcement of the reward campaign.
We will have to have printed up several hundred reward posters and coordinate
some means of distribution. We can develop Public Service Announcements
for broadcast and print media.
The entire group of broadcasting radio stations owned by Sea-Comm Media
have already pledged significant support, to promote and report on the
developments of this campaign.
Many of our community and civic leaders will be made aware of these efforts
and I anticipate some level of participation by them in the immediate
future.
We need to move fast. I would like to see a full blown press conference
sometime the middle of next week, with posters in place and people committed
and on board.
This is an excellent opportunity, for each of us, to draw a line in the
sand and say enough is enough. As good stewards of our community we owe
it to ourselves, and our children, to make a gallant attempt to right
a wrongful act. In fact I propose we call our efforts "Righting the
Wrong" Many of the grave markers were turned over, knocked down and
we want to see these markers and monuments righted, put right side up.
It will be our mission to bring awareness to this, so that others will
join with Oakdale to protect the Cemetery from future acts of vandalism
and to aid and assist as needed in its security. We can use the initial
publicity of the reward offer to further our mission. We can use the placements
of the posters to keep this idea, of a community intolerant of these sort
of acts, in the forefront of our citizens' consciousness while hunt it
on for the vandals.
Thank you for lending your support and for speaking about this to others.
Tre Benson
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