2026 Periwinkle Award was presented to David Zinner of Howard County, who was honored for his decades-long advocacy work in cemetery protection and preservation, including legislative efforts that resulted in successful State laws.
David Zinner comes to cemetery protection and preservation as a passionate activist with a world view framed by his religious commitment to humanity. His professional career has been one related to Jewish burials and mourning. His volunteer activities related to Maryland cemeteries began at OCO and have matured and deepened over decades.
He served as Executive Director for more than 25 years with Kavod v’Nichum (Honor and Comfort), a nonprofit that provides assistance, training, and resources about Jewish death and bereavement practice for synagogues and communities throughout the US and Canada. David continues to participate in Jewish rituals to prepare the deceased for burial and to assist in guarding their bodies until burial.
He has served on the OCO’s Advisory Council on Cemetery Operations for over 20 years as one of five consumer representatives.
He has partnered with members of CPMBS multiple times to initiate state legislation on behalf of all Maryland cemeteries. Bill proposals have worked to increase access, create more stringent penalties, create a unified state database, and build on relationships with legislators.
David has worked tirelessly to convince Catholic Archdioceses that they are responsible for the cemeteries in their domain. He has been a champion for individual cemeteries, most notably Rosa Bonheur in Howard County, whose property has a long history of being taken advantage of by unscrupulous and uncaring owners. He has dealt fearlessly with agencies as varied as SDAT, municipal community groups, and the Department of Labor.
David is passionate, articulate, undaunted, compassionate, and determined. He recognizes a need, figures out how to address it, and goes after it doggedly. He inspires others to join in and maintains support for their activities.
In 2017, David had a vision to help abandoned cemeteries. The following year he created PRINCE (Preservation and Restoration Initiative for Neglected Cemetery Entities) to provide a means of low cost, prisoner assistance to cemeteries and preservation training to incarcerated Marylanders who, upon prison release, could gain employment in the cemetery (or related) industry. This involved convincing Maryland’s Office of Cemetery Oversight and Department of Corrections that teams of pre-release prisoners could bring help to local cemeteries that required labor to conduct repairs and maintenance. He obtained small grants from Corrections and the Trader Foundation for PRINCE. He leads the PRINCE Project using pre-release prisoners in their training and work in cemetery maintenance projects. He also has worked to assist in cemetery cleanups.
Although COVID interrupted the process of starting this project, David held fast and continued to work every possible angle to keep PRINCE moving forward. He joined with professional conservator Robert Mosko to create classroom training sessions in Hagerstown and Jessup that were followed up by field training at nearby Maryland cemeteries. Despite numerous obstacles encountered, David found government entities, cemetery owners and advocates, prisoners, and others to support this innovative program. Oella, St. Peter’s, St. Mary’s, and Savage all benefited from weeks of PRINCE team time at their sites. PRINCE still exists but is not active at this time.
In 2024, 2025, and 2026 David led the Maryland Cemetery Legislative Advocates team, with many of us as members, helping to create and promote cemetery law at the Maryland General Assembly. Out of this came two successful 2025 bills (creating both an Abandoned and Neglected Cemetery Fund and a Workgroup to study initiation of a State-wide Inventory and Database of all Maryland cemeteries). The 2026 session produced a combined bill that sets procedure in the sale or transfer of a cemetery for another use and also creates a way for abandoned cemeteries with no known owners to obtain a clear title created by a jurisdiction and then allowing descendants or nonprofits to take ownership to preserve these sites.
You may watch the presentation of this award held during our conference in 2026.