Bemidji Lions Club Raises Funds to Restore Storm-Damaged Cemetery

Straight-line winds topping 100 mph knocked roughly 50 headstones flat at Greenwood Cemetery on June 21, 2025, and tilted around 200 more. Some of those stones weigh over 1,000 pounds. The Bemidji Lions Club Charitable Foundation, Inc. is still $20,000 short of the $25,000 needed to reset and restore them all.

The foundation pledged $5,000 of its own funds when it launched a six-month fundraising appeal last fall and is calling on businesses, organizations and individuals to contribute the rest.

Bemidji resident Steve Sassano, who organized volunteer cleanup efforts at the cemetery after the storm, explained what the damage means to visiting families. "I think it's like dignity, that families don't need to come here and see a tombstone that's stuck in the roots of the trees and the damage done," he said.

More than 100 trees were also felled across the cemetery's 40 acres, where some headstones had stood for over a century before Category 3 hurricane-force winds leveled them. A foundation release described the impact in terms beyond the physical: "These wounds are not merely physical; they touch the collective memory of our town, leaving scars upon a place that embodies our heritage."

To donate, mail a check payable to The Bemidji Lions Club Charitable Foundation, Inc. to P.O. Box 3045, Bemidji, MN 56619, with "cemetery fund" noted on the memo line.