How Schaefer Funeral Home Aims To Preserve Multi-Cultural Burial Rites In Sunset Park

A Crain’s New York article over the weekend discussed how a Brooklyn funeral home owner caters to the growing population of immigrant families in Sunset Park by providing them with bilingual services to preserve their cultural burial customs.

When Pat Marmo, owner of Daniel J. Schaefer Funeral Home (4123 Fourth Ave.) settled in Sunset Park, he knew the traditional Irish and Scandinavian customers were leaving the area. Instead of panicking, Marmo began to study the neighborhood’s influx of immigrants, predominantly in the Mexican, Asian, and Middle Eastern communities. “You have to evolve with the neighborhood,” he told Crain’s. “You gotta embrace diversity.”

Though families are moving out, Marmo says the new people establishing in Sunset Park are eventually going to need funeral homes. Marmo took note of the growing Mexican population across New York City, and how Ortiz Funeral Home, a successful chain with dozens of funeral homes in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, caters to Hispanic families.

Then, Marmo started offering services in Spanish and focused on serving Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African families. He even earned about Hindu funeral rites in the learning process.

In preparation to cater for his new customers, Marmo started studying Islamic burial customs about eight years ago and hired employees with relevant experience. As his business began to grow, Marmo established the Islamic International Funeral Services for Muslim arrangements, an annex to Schaefer.

Marmo also cultivated relationships with various consulates to help immigrant families transport their relatives’ remains back to their home countries.

“It’s become our forte, knowing what the embassies expect,” Marmo said in the interview. He made those arrangements part of his business, and he recently guided a family in sending a relative’s body back to Benin for burial. They family told Marmo they called several people for help with no luck before coming to Schaefer‘s. “Some people had never heard of Benin,” Marmo said. “I even knew what airline they’d want to use.”