Chambers and James Funeral, Pet and Cremation Services – James Garden

To learn more about James Garden, please visit Chambers and James Funeral, Pet and Cremation Services’ Website

Wellsburg, West Virginia – For many of us, walking into a funeral home can be quite overwhelming. As you step through the doors, you are most likely there to make arrangements for a loved one or say goodbye at a service. At Chambers and James Funeral Home, they felt they needed to make their funeral home more inviting and feel less like a business and more like a home.

Their solution, the James Garden.

What was once a concrete space in desperate need of maintenance, was transformed into a beautiful vegetable garden. As you stroll through the James Garden, you will find herbs and vegetables like tomatoes, peppers and zucchinis growing. In the front of the garden is a sign saying – please feel free to take something home.

The inspiration for the garden was to take guests back to memories of visiting their grandparents garden.

Thus far, it has been a huge success and helping guests spark conversations and share memories. Guests now have a conversation starter that can help them find something to talk about and stories to share from the start of the service until the end.

Funeral homes often have a stigma associated with them of being emotional environments filled with black clothes and a somber atmosphere. The creation of the James Garden has breathed new life into the funeral home and begun to end the misguided stigma that many guests initially have. Furthermore, being able to take something home provides guests with a connection to the funeral home and helps build relationships between the firm and families in the community. Many children and adults have even returned to the garden weeks or months later to check in and see how it is doing.

When the families return to their homes with the vegetable, they continue to be a topic of warm conversation.

Besides being able to take a part of the comfort provided by the James Garden, guests can take something home with them. It also offers a learning experience and a place to go when the children need a break from the service. This has helped change children’s perspectives of funeral homes completely.

The James Garden provides a unique way to make funeral service conversations not just about death but about life. The value, uniqueness and conversation piece it has created makes Chamber and James Funeral Home that much more valuable to their community.

Moving forward, Chambers and James Funeral Home hopes to someday make this innovative and simplistic idea a trend for the funeral homes across the industry. Their goal has always been to help make a new unique way to touch people’s lives and improve their experience when visiting a funeral home.