Chatsworth Mother And Son Help Clean Up Park Graffiti
CHATSWORTH, CA — Mother-son bonding doesn’t usually revolve around cleaning – if anything, that usually leads to mother-son fights.
But for Fonda Hurt and her son Sage, taking about three hours each Saturday and Sunday to clean up the graffiti covering Stoney Point and Garden of the Gods has brought them closer together.
“It’s been nice – it’s healthy, it gives my son and I an activity together,” said Hurt, who notes that her son helps her carry around the gallons of paint they bring to paint over the graffiti with a sponge.
These gallons of rock-covered paint, combined with some dirt, have helped remove the explosion of graffiti marring the boulders at the Garden of the Gods, Stoney Point Park, and all over the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park. Each morning, before it gets too hot, she ventures up, hoping that by the time she hikes down, she won’t see anymore graffiti. Sometimes it reappears a few days later, and Hurt just covers it over again.
The effort began about two months ago when Hurt, a 58-year-old Van Nuys native who has lived in Chatsworth for two years and works for Quest Diagnostics, was hiking with her son around Garden of the Gods, which is right in their backyard. She saw a huge banner of graffiti on nearby rocks, and deciding she wanted to clean up the parks she’s enjoyed hiking her entire life.
“I think it exploded with COVID, and the closing of schools, and parks, and things they couldn’t engage in,” Hurt said about local graffiti, which she noted is unsightly, often profane, and pollutes the air and damages nearby vegetation. She also noted that many of the taggers throw their spraycans on the ground. “All these kids now aren’t going to school and don’t have a lot to do, and”
She went to Home Depot to pick up some paint, but acknowledges that at first the cover-up job didn’t really cover much up. A neighbor gave her some tips, and showed her the right colors and tools to help return the rocks to their original sandy, reddish hues.
Hurt noted that she heard the city might be able to help with supplies, but she called a few times and no one answered.
At first, Hurt paid for the paint herself, which at $27 a gallon started to add up. Soon, friends started a fundraiser to help her pay for supplies, which as of Tuesday has blown past the original goal of $1000 and raised $1723. Hurt said that at least five people in the community have expressed interest in helping her.
“We might get enough people where we could really make a difference, and there are so many beautiful areas that need our help,” she said.
If you would like to help volunteer, send Fonda Hurt a private message on Facebook.
This article originally appeared on the Northridge-Chatsworth Patch
