First Class Funeral Services at Ever-Ready Funeral Home

There are some facts of life that most of us are just not comfortable facing; funeral planning, for instance. Fortunately, for those who are never ready for the inevitable, Ever-Ready Funeral Home is there to help, and according to Best of SVG voters, they are the best undertakers in the business. Kurt Mills is one of the directors at the funeral home. He shared with us his experiences in this sensitive business, and what sets them apart from their competitors.

On how Ever-Ready Funeral Home started…

Ever-Ready Funeral Home started in the 1960s with my grandfather. Back in those days, you didn’t have embalming. They would preserve bodies by putting them on blocks of ice. My father grew up in that environment and he had a passion for that. As a matter of fact, my father was a carpenter too, so

he started by learning with his father how to build local coffins and caskets and he really liked that. He went to Trinidad, came back, started his own business and it grew from there.

On the services they offer…

Funeral service entails making representation on behalf of the family. For instance, there are certain procedural things that you have to do in terms of registration of death. We could arrange that for you as well. Removal, whether it’s from the home, or from the hospital, embalming of the body; we have a wide variety of caskets

and coffins which you could choose from. When you come in, we give you one package, and that basically takes care of everything, unless you want something outside of that package.

On what makes Ever-Ready the best…

We pay a lot of attention to detail and our motto is ‘service above self’. We put the customers in front of everything else, so it’s not just about money. My father always says your reputation is what you have, so you have to make sure you do your best. People could see through that, and if people see you go the extra mile to help them, I think you will be rewarded in the end, because the best form of advertisement is word of mouth. I mean, of course, you can do the media, the social media…newspapers etc, but we have a lot of repeat customers, and you don’t get repeat customers if they’re dissatisfied.

On funeral culture in St Vincent and the Grenadines…

We are getting into the entertainment, sort of, and I never really saw that so prevalent as now. It used to be more sombre before, and even when you go into some of the cemeteries, you would see people selling and drinking, so that is sort of noticeable, in terms of the funeral. We find the trend in St Vincent is people normally reserve funerals for the weekends, as opposed to the other neighbouring territories; for instance Grenada, most of the churches said is a no-no for funerals on the weekend, so they normally do funerals in the week.

On facing the inevitable…

We tend not to be prepared for funerals, so you would find a loved one passed away and there is not enough preparation in terms of insurance and I would advise people to really look into whether it is a credit union, the friendly societies, the NIS, because a lot of people don’t prepare financially and otherwise, and then when the funeral comes, it could be a burden in terms of financial resources.

Final words…

I would like to thank the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines for supporting Ever-Ready Funeral Home over the years. It has been a pleasure. This is our passion. This is not something overnight. We are the oldest, we are the most experienced funeral home in St Vincent, barring none and we couldn’t have been chosen as number one if we weren’t providing quality service to the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines.