Community church teams up with city against graffiti

James Nolan covers up graffiti with other volunteers from The Father’s House on December 15 in Vacaville. (Ian Thompson/Daily Republic)

VACAVILLE — Vacaville’s battle against graffiti has acquired a new ally – volunteers from The Father’s House, who will be expanding their own graffiti abatement work to paint out graffiti across the city.

Vacaville discovered that dealing with the city’s graffiti problem has been a real challenge since several years of budget cuts eliminated one of the city’s graffiti abatement teams.

Earlier this year, The Father’s House offered to step forward with its own volunteers to fill in that void. The Vacaville City Council voiced its support for the partnership earlier this month. The Vacaville Sunrise Rotary Club also stepped up that evening to donate $1,000 worth of paint products to the program.

“It is a partnership that has been a long time in the making,” Vacaville City Manager Laura Kuhn said.

Cyndi Johnston, Vacaville’s director of Housing Services, called this a “very exciting” development that is a perfect opportunity for the city and the community church to work together.

“It’s kind of a natural progression of their outreach to the Vacaville community. It sounds like a perfect opportunity for us as well,” Johnston said. ”We were struggling with a way to do it and we did not have resources to do it. We are just thrilled with the opportunity to work with them.”

Under the alliance, residents and businesses who report graffiti to Vacaville Code Compliance will be asked if they want to have The Fathers House volunteers come out to paint out the graffiti. The Father’s House will come out with paint to match the color of the wall or fence and cover it over.

The Fathers House has already helped the city by helping rebuild and reopen the shuttered Vacaville Boys and Girls Mariposa Center as well as volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club facility in Trower Park.

Their work to eliminate graffiti is an outgrowth of the We Love Our City program and its Adopt-A-Block effort, where The Father’s House volunteers use their Saturdays to take food, make minor home repairs, organize games and provide necessities to needy residents at several locations in Vacaville.

“The graffiti is just another piece of this. We want to partner in any way that we can,” said Raymond Beaty, pastor and community outreach director with The Father’s House.

The Adopt-A-Block volunteers have been painting out graffiti around the blocks they adopted for 18 months.

“Some places just keep getting tagged and we go back,” said volunteer Phillip Wright. “We just keep faithful.”

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or ithompson@dailyrepublic.net. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ithompsondr.

Ian Thompson

Ian Thompson has worked for the Daily Republic longer than he cares to remember. A native of Oregon and a graduate of the University of Oregon, he pines for the motherland still. He covers Vacaville and Travis Air Force Base for the Daily Republic. He is an avid military history buff, wargamer and loves the great outdoors.

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