The Arimathea Society is a new non-profit organization catering to the dead who otherwise wouldn't get a dignified burial.

Their members come from all walks of life. "Our youngest member is a nursing student at UOG. All the way up to retirees. We have a tattoo artist. A teacher," said Adrian Cruz, mortician and funeral director, who leads the organization. He explains they have but one thing in common, saying, "They've all lost loved ones or their family was put in difficulty because of a funeral, an unexpected expense. So they know what it's like and they just wanted to do something."

"Funerals start at about $4,100. Cremation is like $1,800. If you don't have that cash up-front, there's no layaway plan," said Cruz.

Their experiences with loss and death sparked life to the Arimathea Society, named after St. Joseph of Arimathea, the patron saint of funeral directors and the man who buried Jesus. Said Cruz, "When a person dies the family has 30 days to find some kind of arrangement with a funeral home. If they can't afford to pay a funeral home, it becomes the responsibility of Public Health, and then Public Health will have something that's called a pauper's burial - a public burial. There's no family or anything involved, they usually bury them two or three at a time in a grave at Tiguac."

Guam law states if family cannot or will not bury a relative, anyone has the right to do as long as they assume the costs of burial or cremation. This enables the work of the Arimathea Society who has a memorandum of understanding with the government to bury the unclaimed dead pro bono.

These individuals are often homeless, poor, or estranged by their families. "Our philosophy is that whatever it is that got this person into this circumstance, whether its economics or maybe it's their social interaction with their family, they're estranged from their family, they were still a person. They still deserve a decent burial, and we live on a small island, they're our neighbors," he added.

"We arrange for their body to be procured and then we build the coffins for them out of plywood - just simple boxes and then we try to arrange for whatever funeral service we can have for them. So if the person was a Buddhist, we go out of our way to contact the Buddhist temple if they were Baptist, we go to the Baptist church. The majority of Guam is Roman Catholic, so we take them to church or bring them here. And have some kind of dignified funeral for them before we take them to the government cemetery for a simple burial," said Cruz.

Already twenty members strong, the group meets once a month to remember those who otherwise would've been forgotten. "On Guam, people are so used to having rosaries," the director said. "These people don't have that. So, at least we can give them one night a month. This should be a way marker of what society is like on modern Guam, an organization like Arimathea would not have existed ten years ago but it does now."

Cruz is appealing to the public for help, to share their talents and time to help the non-profit's mission. "Whenever there are challenges in our community our community has a long history of stepping up to meet those needs and this is just one manifestation of the many things," he concluded.

For more information, visit the Arimathea Society's page on Facebook of call 477-9330.