STRONG — Towns with older cemeteries can be hard pressed to find ways to pay for repairing, cleaning, straightening and identifying deteriorated and broken gravestones.

At Tuesday night’s selectmen meeting, Deborah Probert of Farmington, a member of the Maine Old Cemetery Association, presented selectmen with examples of standard cemetery stone repairs and cleaning. Probert said she became passionate about helping area towns learn the best methods to care for veterans’ graves and ensure they are marked properly and cleaned, as required by state law.

The town owns Village Cemetery, but there are at least 10 others on private land in town. Probert said she has visited several of them.

“You have several nice cemeteries that look well cared for,” she said.

She said the association hosts workshops geared for all skill levels, including one in Norridgewock and the coastal town of St. George.

Because Strong does not have a cemetery committee, she suggested a review of past four-day workshops could provide “before and after” examples for selectmen before they decided to make any major expenditures. Not all the work was complex or expensive, she said.

“I brought along some of my basic, inexpensive tools that I use,” she said, holding her gloves, a plastic trowel, a non-abrasive scrub brush and a T-shaped probe for finding fragments and old headstones and footstones. She also warned against cleaning with harsh chemicals or pressure washing.

“Never use bleach on stones, because it takes away the patina and actually breaks down the stone more quickly,” she said.

In August 2016, the Maine Old Cemetery Association will host its annual four-day workshop in a Wilton cemetery, so Franklin County citizens can get hands-on training, she said.

In other news at Tuesday’s meeting, Lt. Aaron Marden of the Strong Fire Department said the department received a $20,000 donation from a foundation that preferred to remain anonymous. The money, he said, will be used to purchase self-contained breathing apparatus. The new equipment will include 12 breathing face masks, 12 voice amplifiers and 11 air cylinders.

“The voice amplifiers will allow the firefighter to be heard and understood using a portable radio while wearing the equipment,” he said.

Selectmen congratulated him on this latest successful grant application, which is one of several he has written on behalf of the town.