“Mullins Memorial Funeral Home combines tradition, innovation and experience to provide unique final arrangements in SWFL…”(Featured in SnowBird Journal)

January 30, 2012

A new funeral home facility in Cape Coral allows a caring and dedicated local family to provide funeral services that are very personal, assuring, and affordable. We spent some time with owners Shannon and Sheila Mullins recently. It quickly becomes clear that their family business is less about business and more of a calling…5

Mullins Memorial Funeral Home & Cremation Service, the only family owned and operated final care provider in Cape Coral, opened October 3,2011. Shannon and Sheila Mullins have been Cape Coral residents for over ten years.
Shannon started his career in funeral service in 1992. To date he has owned 2 funeral homes, lived in and worked in eight funeral homes, formerly over saw the Body Bequeathal Program at the University of Kentucky as well as previously managing two funeral homes in Cape Coral that recently merged.

” My passion is people and serving them at what is most times, the most difficult days of one’s life,”stated Shannon. ” The true, heart felt gratitude that you receive after you have served a family can be compared to nothing else, and is what feeds my soul.” Shannon and Sheila decided to open the funeral home because they felt there was a real need in the city for an independent funeral and cremation provider that offers similar goods and services as the corporate funeral homes, but at a significantly lower expense. “Our motto and objective is to provide final care with dignity and affordability. And rest assured, just because our cost is significantly less than the other providers, our service certainly is not. We only have one level of service, regardless of cost,”stated Shannon.

Shannon said that he also wanted to open the funeral home to enjoy the journey, doing what he felt he was born to do and has a passion for;as well as give his 14 month old daughter the option of following in his footsteps one day. Shannon said, “funeral service is a venerable and timehonored profession. Continuing that tradition in Cape Coral, serving one Cape Coral family at a time, is what my family is all about.”The funeral home serves all religious beliefs, nationalities and all financial situations. “We are here to serve in a moment’s notice. No matter if it
is 3pm or 3am or Christmas morning,”Shannon said, adding that families will always deal with the owners of the business.Shannon went on to say that his facility is the only funeral provider to perform all preparation work on-site in the city. Shannon went on to say “maintaining custody of the deceased with minimal transfers lessens the possibility of mistakes happening and feels more respectful for the family.” All-night visitations are also available to families at the funeral home. “This is the community’s building and if they choose to hold an all night
vigil, then that’s what we do,”said Shannon.The funeral home will also be providing the option of virtual services for families that cannot attend the services in person. Maybe inclement weather or an illness or financial restraints prevent them from attending;the virtual family room will allow those folks to be present in real time via the Internet.

Mullins Memorial Funeral Home & Cremation Service is dedicated to providing personalized final arrangements that relate to the deceased life, interests and final requests. This includes a wide variety of containers and keepsakes for the cremains,including customized applications, arranging for burials or scatterings at sea, and so on. A tour of Mullins Selection Room at the Home tastefully displays a number of container options ranging from the traditional casket to some very creative and thoughtful ideas. Shannon said they will even be providing the option of having one’s ashes scattered by rocket from a local launch facility here in Southwest Florida. Families will be able to choose to have all of the ashes or just a portion scattered. “It’s a very unique option,”Shannon said, adding that the rocket can also be launched over the gulf to provide a more celebratory fireworks appeal. Mullins Memorial’s more
traditional scattering services in the Gulf of Mexico can generally accommodate up to 40 attendees.

Military personnel holding a folded US flag.

The funeral home itself is not a large facility. More than 75 percent of families are opting for cremation and then having a celebration of life at a third party location, according to Shannon’s experience and recent statistics.A large facility, and the large expense that goes along with it, is really a thing of the past in Shannon’s view. “You’d have to pass that overhead on to your clients, and we’d rather not do that.”Sheila adds, “This is a primary reason why we can offer the low prices that we do.” Mullins Memorial Funeral Home offers a modern, tastefully appointed, comfortable facility that can accommodate up to about 25 people. “If a family needs a larger area we can still accommodate them with the use of their place of worship or via other gathering areas throughout thecommunity,”says Shannon. The funeral home also provides translation in Spanish, German and Italian for families who need the service. Resources for grieving families are also available at the funeral home. Mullins Memorial Funeral Home & Cremation Services offers some excellent ideas and resources for pre-planning your final arrangements.

We’re all going one day. Why not make that time as easy on those we leave behind as possible. One thing remains to be said. Few times have we met someone as genuinely caring, sincere and assuring as Shannon Mullins. Those are qualities we like in a person we choose to guide our loved ones through a difficult time.Mullins Memorial Funeral Home & Cremation Service, LLC is located at 1056 NE 7th Terrace. For more information, call 239-242-0909. The
website www.MullinsMemorial.com provides history, advanced planning information, current obituaries and an on-line guestbook.

By Dick Collins