PUEBLO — One woman in Pueblo is spreading Christmas cheer where some people might need it most, the children section of the Imperial cemetery.
DeAn Dickinson lost her niece 21 years ago as a baby in an automobile accident and she's buried at Imperial. Dickinson typically comes to decorate her nieces grave on holidays and birthdays.
“When you come out and decorate, you see so many children, with nothing!” said Dickinson.
This past Easter, she decided to try and decorate as many children's graves as she could. Imperial cemetery holds roughly 300 marked and unmarked graves of children, according to Dickinson. Now, she is continuing the idea for Christmas.
“I wanted to do a big nativity scene, and have all the sheep and angels facing it,” said Dickinson.
But as of right now, there is no nativity scene. Dickinson's mother recently had an amputation, and Dickinson faces health problems herself.
"I had breast cancer in 2012 and last year I was diagnosed with Metastatic cancer, so actually tomorrow I’m having a double mastectomy,” Dickinson told us.
She says that she has not had the time or ability to get all of the decorations up that she had wanted, but she is open to help.
"People donate wood, donate solar lights, just paint, take time to help us decorate," urged Dickinson. "Make sure that our community knows that these children are not forgotten.”
Dickinson also encourages other communities to adopt the same idea for cemeteries near them, stating "This is not the only cemetery, this is just a cemetery that has my heart."
