Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful Launches Graffiti Patrol and Sign Sweepers

Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful - Feb. 19, 2007
Contact: George Stilphen, 727-8013

Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful is seeking volunteers to assist with Graffiti Patrol and Sign Sweepers, two new initiatives that it is starting to fight visual pollution.

Graffiti Patrol complements the graffiti hotline that the Police Department started last year in cooperation with the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership, says George Stilphen, the executive director of Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful.

"Our goal is to come up with a list of volunteers who are available on short notice to remove graffiti," Stilphen said. "The longer graffiti stays, the more you get. On the other hand, the quicker you can remove it, the better, because it discourages others from adding to it."

Graffiti removal has long been one of the core goals of Keep America Beautiful, Stilphen said. "Graffiti is getting to be a larger and larger problem downtown, and elsewhere in the city, and some of it is related to gang activity. So this is something that we need to be addressing as an organization."

Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful will train Graffiti Patrol volunteers and provide paint and other materials.

Sign Sweepers is an initiative to remove signs that are illegally placed along roads and on utility poles. The clutter is both illegal and dangerous (because it can obscure sight lines of drivers stopped at intersections). By law, no signs may be placed on utility poles. The only temporary signs that may be placed along roads are those for yard sales and open houses - and then only on the day of the event.

Sign Sweepers volunteers will "adopt" a stretch of road and routinely remove illegal signs much like the Adopt-a-Street program.

For more information or to volunteer for Sign Sweepers or the Graffiti Patrol, call Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful at 727-8013, or go to the Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful web page.