Volunteers scrub graffiti from skate park

ThisWeek CW 08/23/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/canalwinchester/news/2012/08/21/volunteers-scrub-graffiti-from-skate-park.html

A group of volunteers from the Hilton Columbus at Easton provided the necessary elbow grease to clean up graffiti that prompted city officials to close the Canal Winchester Skate Park.

The Hilton’s Blue Energy group contacted the city after seeing a story about the vandalism in ThisWeek Canal Winchester Times, according to Hilton employee and Blue Energy member Mary Faust.

Blue Energy is a part of Hilton’s community outreach program in which employees work together on service projects.

“Our general manager, Alan Howe, read the report in the paper and contacted (Public Services Director Matt Peoples) to offer to help,” Faust said. “We have different focuses throughout the year and this week, we’re focusing on youth programs, so the skate park cleanup is our third youth-based project this week.”

Because of recent storm damage, the annual Canal Winchester Blues and Ribfest and other daily work responsibilities, the city didn’t have the manpower to repair the vandalism immediately and reopen the skate park, according to Mayor Michael Ebert.

Several kids were eagerly awaiting the reopening of the park last week and asking if they could help in any way with the cleanup.

“We want these kids to know that we weren’t trying to punish them,” Ebert said. “We just didn’t have the people to get out here and make the repairs. We’re limited in what we can do at one time, so we’re so happy to have this volunteer group and thankful so many of them showed up.”

The seven volunteers took turns on Aug. 15 and managed to scrub the graffiti away in about an hour, a job that otherwise might have taken a day to do, according to Ebert. The city provided the paint-removal chemicals and a high-pressure sprayer to help with the job.

By the next morning, Peoples said he already saw some skaters using the park again.

Blue Energy member Jamie Smith said the group’s youth initiatives are all about refocusing kids on positive activities.

“I used to be an aggressive inline skater as well, so I know how positive this kind of thing can be and how much I would have missed having a place like this,” Smith said.

Howe agreed that it is important to give kids positive options and show you care.

“When I pulled up, there were these three kids asking if they could help us, when there are so many other, bad things they could’ve been into,” he said. “Our group has always felt helping others is the right thing to do and we started it a while ago as part of our care committee. Hilton has now adopted this companywide as the Blue Energy group. I think it is a real joy to work with these people.”