Members of the Tamina community will come together for a town hall meeting Feb. 2 at 7 p.m., to discuss drainage issues at the Sweet Rest Cemetery, which have left grave sites submerged under standing water.

Located behind Lone Star Baptist Church, 10833 Main Street, Conroe, the Sweet Rest Cemetery serves as the final resting place for many of the historic community’s first settlers, with gravestones dating back to the late 1870s.

The unincorporated community was first founded in 1871 by freed slaves following the Civil War. The community have been fighting for public sewer service for more than 15 years.

Bobby Johnson, a pastor at Thergood Memorial Church of God in Christ located in Willis, and Elijah Easley, chairman of the board for the Tamina Cemetery and Project Community Development Corporation, will lead the town hall discussion.

“Our main project is this Tamina Cemetery,” Easley said in a video. “This cemetery dates back to the 1870s and in this cemetery we have former slaves, Native Americans, veterans, law enforcement officers and truly the descendants and those who founded the Tamina community. We’re in the process of trying to get this corrected. We don’t want to leave this situation in the way in which we found it; we want a better day for all of the children who will come behind us.”

Topics of discussion during the town hall meeting will include drainage issues and a lack of fire hydrants in the Tamina community, specifically in the Sweet Rest Cemetery.

“We’re praying for the help of so many and we’re looking for the collaborative help of all of South Montgomery County, inclusive of our government officials, alongside our corporations and also individuals,” Easley said. “We have individuals that have already stepped up to the plate to assist with this process, but we need the help of everybody across the board to help us to get this rectified so we don’t continue to go into the future leaving this worse than how we found it.”

The event will take place at TownHall Texas, located at 12194 Sleepy Hollow Road, Conroe. Refreshments will be provided. For more information about the Sweet Rest Cemetery community, click here.