Teen plans to identify historic graves in two Collier County cemeteries

16-year-old Jonathan Rodriguez is working to restore two historic collier county cemeteries.

“Ever since I was little I remember my mom used to bring me here, and she used to tell me about the history of these two sites,” said Jonathan.

The hope is to identify 19 unnamed black people buried there, and bringing the entire gravesite the respect it deserves.

“We have now officially gained all the signatures needed to obtain the deed for this land so far, and our goal.. We have reached $30,000 of our $40,000,” said Jonathan.

Raising that kind of cash is no small feat, but Jonathan has big plans. He believes it’s wrong that there’s merely a marker for plot n, but nothing for the dead.

“I simply want to educate the people of Collier County, to know our history,” he said. “It may not be the brightest history we have, but it’s still our history, and we need to embrace it. I also hope to fix our history to give these early citizens a dignified resting place.”

Part of the cemetery is located in the parking lot of the Goodlette Corners Plaza on Pine Ridge and Goodlette-Frank Road, but a segregated area is located off Pine Ridge Road within the parking lot of Lee Asian Market.

“My family, we come from black and Hispanic communities. I am Mexican, but I have a lot of cousins who tend to be Haitian or in the black community. And this project, I’ve gotten a lot of support from them,” Jonathan said.

We do not know who’s burried here, however we do know that they were buried in the early 1930s. No records were kept on who they were or where their families were from.

Jonathan calls what he’s doing Project Reverence, and started it to become an Eagle Scout. One of his first calls was to Amanda Townsend, the director of Collier County Museums.

“Jonathan, in the meantime, has been doing an excellent job fundraising, so that we’ll have the funds that we need to do a survey, put the fence and put the headstones in and hopefully do a historic marker,” said Townsend.

“I’m really proud of his determination to educate the community on this part of our history,” said Maria Rodriguez, Jonathan’s mother.

“I promise I will do this project justice, and I will do my hardest to complete it,” said Jonathan.

Jonathan’s plan is for the unnamed to be named within the next year.