 Evergreen Cemetery is a window into Portland's past, and the Friends of Evergreen Cemetery has begun its 2012 walking tour season to bring that past alive. This year they've added special tours so that those who may have difficulty getting around can still enjoy this Portland gem. Leslie McVane talked with the Friends Community Outreach Coordinator, Lisa Evans, and doset Mary Ann Wallace about this year's season. Well, Lisa and Mary Ann, thank you for being here today. You are starting up the season at Evergreen, Friends of Evergreen, with a new dosent program and tours of the cemetery. Tell us a little bit about that. Oh, well thank you for having us here. I guess we're starting our history dosent walking tour program, and this winter we went through the Portland History Dosent program with many of the nonprofits in the area like Portland Greater Landmarks and Main History Society. So we now have nine docents who are trained to take lead tours around the cemetery. We've got a multitude of different tour subjects like notable women, the Civil War, artists in Evergreen. And so now we have this program set up twice a week. We will have regular scheduled tours Thursdays at 5 p.m. and Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m. And Mary Ann, you're one of the new docents. Well, I'm not exactly a new docent. I started last year and I took the PhD or the Portland History Dosent program in 2008. I've been a volunteer at another historical site here. But when last summer, when I saw some articles in the paper that Evergreen was going to revitalize its tour program and was looking for people, I've been always fascinated by the cemetery and decided to see what was going on, went to the first meeting and I haven't left. Now, do you have a specialty? There are different tours, women, artists, Civil War. Is there one in particular that? The one that I've done the most work on is the seafarers. And I will be giving that on Thursday, tomorrow. And I'm working on a new tour right now on the western end of the cemetery because we tend to focus near the chapel and we really haven't concentrated in that section. So I'm working on that right now and we'll be giving that a week and a half from now. Is that right? Well, it's a lovely cemetery. I was out there this weekend, Memorial weekend, doing our family plot at Evergreen. And I was impressed with how well-kept it is. It has been forever. I used to play there as a child and it's absolutely beautiful. And there are people who aren't able to do these tours or at least in the past they haven't been able to do these tours because it's a big garden and it takes a lot of time to walk through. But you've added something else this year. That's right. We have a new program we call Oats, older adult tours. And the genesis of this tour was when I was working in the office covering for Elaine Spring one day. A resident from Park Danforth came in and wanted to tour the cemetery and she wanted to go down by the ponds. And it scared me because she would be alone and the terrain is rough and gravely. So she came back for a regular tour and it was a little too much for her because she had a walker. So we developed this tour. Janet Morelle who developed our tours over the years of the friends created a driving tour. So we start with a presentation in the chapel, in Wild Chapel, a slideshow presentation and then we take a driving tour through the cemetery. There's about a two-hour program. And so we have been reaching out to retirement communities in the greater Portland area and inviting them to come to Evergreen. There's a, it's a pretty low fee program but there is a small fee. And if the retirement community has a van, we get in their van and we drive through the cemetery. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. It's very fun. Regular tours, is there a fee for that as well? There is. It's $7 but if you're a member of the Friends of Evergreen, it's $5. So then, and children 12 and under are free. Great. And this will, these programs will be repeated, they start again and keep going through the fall. They do. They do. We're going to continue this schedule twice, this twice-weekly schedule through August and then we'll cut back to once a week as long as we can until it's just too snowy. Well, how do they find out more people? On our website, friendsofevergreen.org. Oh, great. Well, I'm going to sign up. The one tomorrow night sounds fabulous. Thank you both for being here. Well, thank you. Thank you.