Ever since I was a teenager, working my first job at my parent’s hot dog stand in Waikiki, I hated graffiti. Our concession stand was located down an alleyway to Waikiki Beach and at night, our alley (and sometimes our shop) would get vandalized with graffiti. I would paint over it, and inevitably in time, the graffiti would come back. Working in Waikiki was one of the most fun jobs I ever had. But it upset me to see graffiti by our shop and for our tourists, who just spent thousands of dollars to experience Hawaii, to have to see that, too.
In college I read a book by Malcolm Gladwell called “The Tipping Point.” The book struck a chord with me because it spoke about Graffiti and other forms of vandalism and how, if left unchecked, would lead to further lawlessness, theft and vandalism in the community. The graffiti would be like a sign to criminals that says, “no one cares about this neighborhood, do whatever you want around here.” Reading Malcolm’s book took me right back to when I was a teen painting over graffiti in Waikiki and further emboldened me to keep graffiti off our streets.
We enlisted the services of my kids from a small age and we do frequent “graffiti walks.” The kids dislike graffiti as much as I do. They will spot graffiti around town and point it out and say, “We will have to come back and get that later.” Previously we were limited to parking and then walking with our paint, but then we upped our game with a tricycle that we purchased. The tricycle has a basket that can haul our paint bucket and brushes and has expanded our reach in the neighborhood.
Our latest evolution in our fight against graffiti is our vehicular operation, affectionately known as “drive by shooting.” Where we have set up in the bed of my truck with a used generator to power our Wagner home painting spray gun. Now we have been able to scale up our operation to knock out way more graffiti over a larger area. If you would like to support and join in on our movement, please donate to our Patreon page.
All funds will be used to support our efforts to fight graffiti. Let us know where you see graffiti and we will roll through your town with our paint guns in hand.
Mālama,
Jake
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