It has been almost seven years since poverty advocate Almeta Crayton, founder of the Thanksgiving “Everyone Eats” campaign and a former Columbia City Councilwoman, died at age 53.
The woman praised as a model for the community was poor herself and, friend and admirer Tyree Byndom recently discovered, there is no marker on her grave at Memorial Park Cemetery for people who wish to leave flowers or other small tokens to honor her.
Byndom said and his wife decorate graves of their family members weekly.
“I had been trying to find Almeta for almost a year when I found her,” Byndom said Friday. “It took me three or four times to find her. When I found her I was dismayed that she had no marker. I put a flower on her grave and posted on social media.”
The post asked for small donations to meet the projected cost of a marker and drew a response from Kentrell Minton, director of Almeta Crayton Community Programs, a not-for-profit founded to continue the Thanksgiving program and provide other help for people in poverty.
A headstone purchased near the time of Crayton’s death couldn’t be placed, Minton wrote, because Memorial Funeral Home said it would not place a stone it had not sold for graves in its cemetery.
“They then gave me a high price on one from them,” Minton wrote. “Our organization does not get any type of funding nor grants. I do 80 percent out of my company’s to make sure we stay running. I have the first $1,000 to go with the new purchase of headstone out of my pocket, let’s raise this money. Thanks again brother we try not to ask for anything!!”
Through Friday afternoon, the post had raised $960 of the estimated $3,000 cost.
Minton could not be reached for comment Friday.
The cemetery does not have a policy against headstones from outside monument companies but it does have rules about size, placement, the use of equipment on the grounds and insurance requirements for anyone working on the property.
“As a general rule, we do work with outside monument companies,” said Kent Knudsen, general manager of Memorial Funeral Home.
He could not give specifics about the Crayton grave and discussions with the family, he said, but he has talked to Byndom.
“We have good relations,” he said. “We are all on the same page.”
Byndom said Knudsen told him Memorial prefers to use monuments it has sold, but it is not a rule.
Minton told him that a headstone purchased after Crayton’s death is in storage in St. Louis, Byndom said.
“We are trying to find out with them if it is going to work,” he said.
Crayton died Oct. 21, 2013, and served on the Columbia City Council from 1999 to 2008, representing the ward that encompasses the central city and the downtown area. She lived in a modest home on Oak Street that went through a major renovation by Fairview Road Church of Christ in July 2013.
Crayton was widely known for her philanthropic work. The Everyone Eats program will be in its 23rd year this fall. Crayton also hosted the Poor People’s Breakfast, a community meal held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day since the 1990s.
“People are still going to be counting on this program, especially now,” Byndom said. “It is one of the things we can count on every year.”
The goal of the project is to have the stone purchased, carved and placed by the anniversary of Crayton’s death, Byndom said.
“As much as she did for this community, we are going to rectify this immediately,” he said.
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