Dear Friends,

It's been three years since River View Cemetery launched our Natural Burial program, welcoming those looking for more eco-friendly options. We appreciate your continuing interest in our program.

As you know, River View can arrange burial without embalming or an outer burial vault - even shrouded burials with no casket at all - nearly anywhere in our cemetery. We've performed 25 such burials to date this year, representing one-fifth of all full-body earth burials. About an equal number have made advance arrangements this year to ensure a natural burial when their time comes. The Natural Burial page of our website is the most visited page on our site. Clearly this is an alternative that's important to our community!

Along with providing natural burial throughout our historic property, we continue to lay the groundwork for a new garden that will feature native plantings and a range of benefits to our local ecosystem. As reported in earlier updates, we've partnered with West Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District to restore 14 acres of cemetery forest that were choked by invasive weeds. Working with the county on the Sellwood Bridge replacement at the foot of our property has provided another opportunity to incorporate environmental best practices.

In the coming year we look forward to continuing to incorporate the community's feedback as we improve and expand our Natural Burial program. If your professional, neighborhood, faith, or community organization would like to host a conversation about natural burial, we would be delighted to arrange a presentation.

In the meantime, the Natural Burial Program team and I would like to wish you and your loved ones a wonderful holiday season.

Best regards,