Projects
Cemetery Resource Protection Training (CRPT) Conference 2024
General Information
Historic cemeteries in Florida are an important part of our history and culture.
Join us at the Depot Station in downtown Gainesville February 8-9 for the 2024 Cemetery Resource Protection Training (CRPT) Conference! Learn from experts and enthusiasts from around the state about research, preservation, and action happening in our historic cemeteries.
The conference this year will focus heavily on incredible work happening in historic African American cemeteries in Florida, and specifically in the Gainesville area. There are many long-term community-driven projects in cemeteries throughout Florida and the Gainesville area and we plan to have local descendants, caretakers, historians, preservationists, community members, elected officials, and others (most of whom fill many of those roles at once) who drive these important projects presenting about their work and attending. We hope to see you there!
*Click Here for Full Program*
Schedule at a Glance
Thursday, February 8th, 2024
The Depot Event Space, 201 SE Depot Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601
9:00 am – Registration and Coffee
9:30-12:10 pm – Presentations
12:10-1:25 pm – Lunch
1:25-5:00 pm – Presentations and Panels
6:00-7:30 pm – Catered reception and awards ceremony. Reception catered by The Top restaurant. Reception is casual and dinner will be self-service taco bar with vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options. Food and beverages are also available for purchased at the other shops in the building. Reception is at The Depot Event Space where folks can enjoy the food, company, and the outdoor space available at the venue.
Friday, February 9th, 2024
Historic Evergreen Cemetery, 401 SE 21st Ave, Gainesville, FL 32641
10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Field Demonstrations. We’ll spend the day at Historic Evergreen Cemetery where we’ll have stations set up in the cemetery for attendees to learn how to properly clean headstones, monitor and document cemeteries using the HMS Florida program, how to reset a sunken or fallen headstone, and more!
Registration
Registration includes the full 2-day conference, the first day consists of speakers and a catered evening reception and awards ceremony. The second day consists of field activities in a local cemetery.
To make the conference as accessible as possible, we are offering a General Registration as well as a Discount Registration that is intended for students or community members for whom a full-priced registration may be unaffordable. If you would like to help support our ability to offer Discount Registrations, General Registration tickets have the option at checkout to add an additional fee to help us fund Discount Registrations. If a Discount Registration is unaffordable for you, please reach out to Rachael at kangasr@usf.edu or Nigel at snrudolph@usf.edu and we will do our best to work with you.
We will be broadcasting the conference live over Zoom! Our venue is a historic building, we appreciate your patience if we have and any glitches in the Wi-Fi connection. We also plan to record presentations in case there are any issues with the Zoom connection.
Thank you to our generous donors and sponsors who have already allowed us to lower the cost of registration significantly!
In-Person Registration is FULL!
Keynote
We are honored to welcome our keynote speaker, Representative Glenda Simmons Jenkins of the Gullah/Geechee Nation!
Representative Jenkins’ keynote address “Promises and Postmortems: Recovering and Restoring Dignity to Gullah/Geechee Burial Grounds” will seek to deconstruct the commitments that created organized burial spaces for Gullah/Geechee and African American people and to examine the reasons that today there are hundreds if not thousands of sacred Black cemetery sites that have been destroyed or desecrated. There will be a case study of progress made in Nassau County and a review of what still remains to be done.
Biography: Rep. Glenda Simmons Jenkins is a native of Fernandina Beach. She traces her maternal ancestry in Florida to her great-great grandparents who migrated from South Carolina to Alachua County sometime after the Civil War. Simmons Jenkins learned of her Gullah/Geechee heritage in 2002. In 2003 she co-founded the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Committee of Northeast Florida, the first known grassroots organization in the state to carry the title “Gullah/Geechee.” She became elected a Gullah/Geechee Nation Representative for Florida serving the Assembly of Representatives in 2004. In 2006 the United States Secretary of the Interior appointed her a Commissioner of the inaugural Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission. She stepped into climate advocacy more than a decade ago in 2012 as a charter member of the Gullah/Geechee Sustainability Think Tank. Joining Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, she was a drafter and signatory of “The Pocantico Call to Action on Climate Impacts and Cultural Heritage” produced by the Pocantico Call to Action Coalition during a convening in February 2015 led by the Union of Concerned Scientists and other sponsors. Simmons Jenkins earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Florida in Gainesville. She worked as a staff reporter and contributing writer in her hometown. In October 2020, after community members alerted her of unmarked burials in the former Yulee sawmill community of Piney, Simmons Jenkins, in partnership with the Florida Public Archaeology Network, launched the Gullah/Geechee Burial Ground Recording Project to record on the Florida Master Site File the many forgotten Gullah/Geechee burials located on private property in Nassau County, as well as overlooked historic resources related to Gullah/Geechee culture. As a result of this work, the Florida Archaeological Council awarded her the 2022 Stewards of Heritage Award. She serves as an At-large Lay Person Director, Board of Directors, FPAN. In November 2022, after many years building the concept for an organization that could create solutions to address the local marginalization of her people, she founded the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Community Trust Inc., (GGCCT) and serves as the nonprofit’s executive director. Her work is to guide the nonprofit’s mission “to serve and sustain [the Gullah/Geechee] community by protecting our land ownership, investing in our cultural resources and promoting our history and heritage” with an emphasis on cultural sustainability, land retention, and climate resilience.
COVID-19/Masking– Masks are not required at the conference however in alignment with the CDC guidelines to protect yourself and others, we encourage attendees to consider wearing face masks while indoors, practice basic hygiene like hand washing, and if you are experiencing symptoms consistent with Covid-19 or have been exposed to someone who has tested positive in the last 5 days, please consider staying home from the event. Contact Rachael kangasr@usf.edu if you need to refund your ticket.
Thank you to our generous sponsors!
Thank you to Staci Bertrand, Duke Energy Government & Community Relations for Alachua, Citrus, Sumter, Hernando, Levy, Marion Counties for coordinating a generous sponsorship from Duke Energy!
Evergreen Cemetery for sponsoring Morning Refreshments on Friday and Granite Level Sponsorship!
The Matheson History Museum for sponsoring Morning Refreshments on Thursday!
Community Planning Collaborative for Marble Level Sponsorship!
Atlas Preservation for Sponsoring the Golden D-2 Award (see award nominations below for more details) by providing the D-2 Biological Solution!
Sponsorship Opportunities
Is your organization interested in becoming a sponsor of the 2024 CRPT conference? Find more info here!
Award Nominations- CLOSED
There are 2 awards presented at the evening reception of CRPT Conferences!
- The Golden D-2 Award– Presented to a cemetery community representing coordinated descendants, stewards, landowner and larger community in ensuring the safety of an historic cemetery. The cemetery must have been endangered at one time.
- C.A.S.B.O.Y. – Cemeteries Are Safer Because of You Award– awarded to an individual having demonstrated exponential impact on recording cemeteries to the Florida Master Site File as a result of a CRPT workshop.
Hotels
There are many hotels located minutes from our conference location at The Depot Event Space. To keep costs down, we did not reserve a room block so feel free to stay anywhere that meets your needs! Here are 6 options ideas from the Visit Gainesville site!
Conference Venue
Our cozy conference venue is the Depot Event Space located at 201 SE Depot Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601. The Depot Event Space is situated in the historic heart of Gainesville, at Depot Park. The building was placed on the US National Register of Historic Places in 1996. Check out The Depot Station for more information on this special location and other businesses that reside in the historic Depot Station Building!
Call for papers- CLOSED Contact Rachael at kangasr@usf.edu or Nigel at snrudolph@usf.edu for any questions.
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