How National Cremation Placement Day Can Help Families Better Grieve
An estimated 25 million urns sit on garage shelves, inside closets, or in homes across the United States today, representing approximately 25 percent of all American households. For cemetery and funeral home owners, this staggering reality underscores a critical issue in modern deathcare: a severe delay or total absence of permanent memorialization for cremated remains. It’s shocking that permanent placement and memorialization still rarely have been treated as an immediate priority by families or funeral homes.
“A hundred and fifty years of cremation in this country,” Honnalora Hubbard, regional sales manager at ColdSpring marveled. “We’re at the hundred and fiftieth anniversary and we’ve never made permanent placement and memorialization a priority.”
Each year the continued rise of cremation adds millions of additional unplaced urns, but this shift in consumer behavior presents an opportunity to re-engage communities. Families seeking a central place to gather across generations are increasingly choosing private estate structures and multi-niche arrangements.
Community Education and Outreach Are Essential
The primary barrier preventing families from placing remains in a cemetery is not a lack of interest, but a lack of public awareness and urgency. Most families simply do not realize that holding an urn at home can interrupt or delay the grieving process.
“We’re doing such harm by not educating them,” Hubbard said. “We’re creating grief and compound grief and delaying the grief journey, and I don’t think any of us are okay with that.”
Permanent placement isn’t really the kind of news story that gets local media excited, but the recently announced National Cremation Placement Day provides an opportunity to change that. Hubbard conceived the event following the untimely and close cancer deaths of three of her siblings during COVID. All were cremated and none were memorialized at first, despite Hubbard’s prodding.
“I kept trying to tell my family we have to do something. and I thought, I this is what I do for a living, and I can’t convince my family,” she said. Hubbard finally prevailed and the event was cathartic and inspiring. “It dawned on my relatives that this is what we’d been missing. And it was our opportunity to grieve all three of them and honor their lives and spend time together.”
Hubbard understood that sometimes families need both a little proding and also an excuse to continue their grieving. She thought about how she could best spread the word and pitched the idea to the Coldspring marketing team.
It was through those conversations that National Cremation Placement Day got its beginning. From there, it was only a matter of getting it added to the national calendar (it’s set for October 17), and getting the ball rolling among cemeteries, memorialization firms, and funeral homes nationwide.
Proven Strategies to Get the Word Out
The Colspring marketing team created a complete turnkey project available for free on its website. This initiative equips deathcare providers with every resource necessary to build awareness and host impactful local events.
One of the most effective ways to launch a campaign is by engaging local media outlets. Funeral homes and cemeteries can download pre-written press releases and story pitch templates to share with area journalists. “One in Four Homes is Technically a Cemetery,” “25 Million Homes Are Storing Cremated Remains,” or any other eye-catching headlines are a way to get the conversation started.
Local news stations and newspapers frequently cover stories that directly affect a quarter of their readership, providing publicity and acknowledging the event as a vital public service.
Direct outreach to past clients also yields high engagement. Coldspring also supplies customizable direct mail postcards, structured email templates, and trained staff scripts to reach out to families who selected cremation in past years. Framing October 17 as an upcoming community service creates a gentle, natural deadline for families to make decisions before the busy holiday season begins. Even if it only starts the conversation about whether to prepare for next year, getting people talking is the critical step.
On the day of the event, participating cemeteries and funeral homes can host a unified memorial service featuring music, a spoken message, and the reading of loved ones’ names. Providers can offer special incentives, such as discounted niche options, special cremation packages, or even donated spaces for families in financial need.
Monument dealers, funeral homes, and cemeteries are encouraged to partner together locally to share resources, educate their market, and ensure every family finds a dignified, permanent path forward. More than that, it’s a community-building opportunity that can continue to grow while providing support to people who didn’t even know they needed it.
“This is an opportunity to let them find a permanent home, to be memorialized, but also do it in such a beautiful and dignified way that it’s a part of a community event,” Hubbard said, adding that participants are encourage to share their experiences to help the event grow. “The best ideas are ahead of us and I cannot wait to hear them.”
If your firm participates or gets any press from the event, let us know.
