"Any one of us here could end up like this," said Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook, who also serves as the cemetery's president. "And I'm glad that just the people around here, we would at least think enough to memorialize that."

This year, the memorial service honored 72 unclaimed people. 

But today's event wasn't just to remember those who went unclaimed - but also Joe Giles, former Erie County Councilman and president of the cemetery, who died earlier this year.

His family was able to honor him in the same place that he helped honor hundreds of others.

"He was very, very vital in creating the cemetery in the state that it's in now," said Giles younger sister, Deborah Vahanian.

"And to know that he cared enough for people who really had nobody else to care for them after when they died, it's quite an honor for all of us as his brothers and sisters to be here and to to honor the other people that didn't have people to honor them."