PARKVILLE, Md. — The cost of saying goodbye can add up fast. For many families, grief quickly turns into financial stress, from funeral expenses to obituary printing. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the average cost for a funeral is about $7,500.
Catanna Anderson is helping ease the burden in the printing department. Anderson runs her own business, CA Design Space in Parkville. She prints items for special events like birthdays, graduations, but also funerals. She knows firsthand how loss can take a toll on families, both emotionally and financially.
“I don’t care if they’re 99 years old and you know they’re gonna go—it’s still a shock the day that it happens,” said Anderson.
She’s seen the weight that funeral expenses place on families.
“You have these bills, and you find out sometimes the person is underinsured, or maybe they just have enough to cover it—or they have no insurance at all. You go to the funeral homes and you find out these programs are gonna cost $500, $600, $700—up to $2,000,” said Anderson.
That’s where Anderson steps in.
“Families with no insurance at all, I offer a standard obituary, up to 100 copies, for free,” said Anderson.
Anderson never turns a family away.
“Cost should never be the reason why families don’t have obituaries. I have families tell me they didn’t know how they were gonna pull this off. They were gonna make copies at work—black and white. When I hear people say that, I say, not on my watch. We’re gonna do this right. We’re gonna put this loved one away the way they should be,” said Anderson.
Sometimes, she even covers the cost out of her own pocket. A labor of love that has become more challenging with the increased cost of printing materials.
“I would love to have the support from the community because, of course, this stuff costs a lot—but I would still do it regardless,” said Anderson.
Unlike traditional funeral homes that often limit the number of obituary photos, Anderson gives families more space to tell their loved one's story.
“We don’t have to capture someone’s life in just 10 photos. We can do 20. We can do 50,” she said.
Anderson is also working on a workbook, ‘Putting Thing in Order, to help my loved ones when I’m gone’.
“It talks about life insurance policies. It talks about the different people you need to contact—doctors, assets, real estate.” said Anderson.
It’s designed to help people prepare their affairs in advance—everything from life insurance to key contacts and legal documents.
“I want to include a pocket for important papers, social Security cards, military or old photos, birth certificates,” said Anderson.
One critical page in the workbook? A place to write down important passwords, something Anderson wish she had after losing her mother this year.
“If I could’ve just asked her right then and there, ‘Hey mom, what’s your password?’ Now I have to lose everything she had on her laptop because I didn’t ask a simple question,” said Anderson.
Her mother had stage 4 cancer that metastasized to nine places in her body. Within weeks, she was gone.
“As hard as it was, we were blessed to ask, ‘Mom, how do you want to be buried? How do you want to do things? Where are the important papers in your house,” shared Anderson. “A lot of people asked how I wrote my mom’s obituary and didn’t lose it. But it was easy, because it was an honor to do it, more than a burden.”
Anderson picked up her printing skills at Carver Vocational Technical High School as a student and years later is giving back to her community. Whether Anderson is printing for someone she’s known her whole life or someone she’s just met, she says the mission remains the same.
“Walk in here a stranger, leave as family or a friend. And if you didn’t get that feeling, then I did something wrong because everyone who walks in ends up being family,” said Anderson.
Click here for more information on CA Design Space.
