Coleman’s Funeral Services is a Black-owned funeral services company in Philadelphia that aims to help families deal with being unprepared, writes Kylan Watson for The Philadelphia Tribune.
Blaine Coleman, who owns the company, said he has noticed that Black families are often more unprepared than their white counterpart. This is especially true when it comes to not have life insurance and savings after the reality and inevitability of death.
Beyond that, Coleman has also seen another challenge within the funeral industry: namely, the increasing popularity of cremation.
As more Black families are seeking that route, it has effected the bottom line for Black-owned funeral homes like Coleman’s.
“We are not able to charge the same kind of money that our counterparts in the white communities are able to charge,” Coleman said. “Our community is just not able to live up and meet us at that level.”
It also doesn’t help that Coleman’s is a small funeral home, making it challenging for more people to hear about it through word-of-mouth.
Nonetheless, Coleman strives to honor the memory of his client’s family members he is memorializing by being “extremely patient and compassionate.”
Read more about Blaine Coleman and how he helps families better prepare for the inevitability of death in The Philadelphia Tribune.
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