OGDENSBURG — Ogdensburgh Cemetery will be going through many changes in the next month as volunteers and contractors work to repair uprooted and sunken gravestones in the veterans plot.

Over the years, many of the white marble gravestones have sunk, become uprooted or fallen over, Ogdensburg Veterans Association President Jerry G. Peo said Tuesday.

“Some of the names and dates you can’t read because of how far the graves have settled,” Mr. Peo said.

Many of the brass plaques, which also have sunk, have become overgrown with grass and roots and are unreadable.

About a dozen volunteers from the Ogdensburg Veterans Association and several other veterans have come together to repair the damage.

This month, the group plans to raise all of the brass plaques and have them attached to concrete slabs.

The white marble gravestones will be dug out and given new foundations. Several of the holes and divots around the graves will be filled in as a safety precaution, Mr. Peo said. “The goal is to maintain what we have and to make things more level,” he said.

“We have a group of veterans who come from several different organizations, and some on their own, who are willing to invest their time and energy to take care of the hallowed ground,” Mr. Peo said. “These are guys that are 60 to 80 years old, but they’re willing to do the work in order to make sure these grave sites will always be treated with the respect they deserve.”

The volunteers will rake, clear brush, and remove tributes and debris around the stones before crews from St. Lawrence Valley Concrete, Brushton, restore the stones and plaques.

The $7,000 restoration project will be funded by a grant through the state Dormitory Authority. The association hopes to have the project completed “before the bad weather arrives,” Mr. Peo said.

“Our goal is to make it so that the vets out there are not forgotten and to give them a place of rest that looks nice,” Mr. Peo said. “It’s the least that we can do.”

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