“Pass the syrup, please!” Funeral home breakfast service starting to catch on

“White or wheat?”

Diana Kanan, reporter for Michigan’s Flint Journal, authored a brief blurb today about how breakfast service is starting to catch on at Genesee County area funeral homes. Miles Martin Funeral Home of Genesee County in June began offering a continental breakfast for families on the day of a funeral service. The breakfast consists of baked goods, fruits, yogurt, coffee, milk and juice to serve about 25 to 30 family members.

“The response has been extremely positive,” said Elizabeth Peterson, manager of Miles Martin Funeral Home in Mt. Morris. “It’s not uncommon for families to call or write us expressing how grateful they were to have one less thing to worry about on that day.” Because the response has been so positive the funeral home, owned by Adam Miles Martin, plans to open the Martin Funeral Home Community Room after the first of the year.” We plan to offer catering options to families after the funeral service.” stated Peterson. “We’re anticipating the room to hold 50 to 70 people.”

Death Care Publicist commentary

Who knew such a simple gesture of breakfast would be such a smash at this funeral home? And look at the positive PR angles of this story:

• continental breakfast for families on the day of a funeral service
• consists of baked goods, fruits, yogurt, coffee, milk and juice
• serves 25-30 family members
• extremely positive response from the community
• inspired the extension of catering options to families after the funeral service via a new community room

These are delicious ingredients of a fantastic death care publicity campaign. The idea here is to, of course, comfort the families on their day of need while providing stellar, targeted and relevant services that make the families “feel good” in a day where, let’s face it … most of them feel every emotion but good.

Kudos to Miles Martin Funeral Home for creating not only a new, targeted and welcome service for families but also for creating an excellent opportunity for publicity. Notice the add-on buzz opportunities with the funeral home’s upcoming community room and catering services. This is a recipe for PR success. While there is so much more that could be done to create added curiousity and intrigue, a solid foundation of publicity goodness has been established for this funeral home. Now will you pass me the butter, please?