(Just a few of the Telus team members at the Lorne Park graffiti clean-up Saturday.  Photo 250 News)

Prince George, B.C. – There are people who give and people who take, some who damage while others repair, there are people who deface and then there are the Telus workers who spearheaded the graffiti clean-up at Lorne Park on Saturday.

Telus has joined on as one of the partners in the Graffiti-free program launched in the city last week.  And the company’s team members took on a fairly sizeable task in deciding to paint over the graffiti plastered all over the residential fences backing onto the park.

Telus field manager Ryan Peddie, who is the activity prime for the Telus Day of Giving, says “in discussions with the RCMP and the City this was identified as an area that was really plagued with graffiti and we came and did some walk-throughs during the winter and early spring and realized that it was as bad as we thought.  It made it really easy to say well here is one large, concentrated area, a really nice family park that is completely under-utilized because of all the graffiti and stuff that was around, and made it very easy to do a concentrated effort and clean it up.”

Peddie says upwards of 80 people turned out on Saturday, but not all of them were Telus people.  “No, residents have come out, Telus employees, family and friends, other residents even from outside of the park have stopped by and pushed a few brushes.  It’s been a really good turnout.”   So good in fact that a job that was estimated to run from 8 or so in the morning until 3p.m. was done, finished, kaput, in one hour.  And that was painting all of the fencing that borders on the park.

Peddie says the phone company will continue working on community projects.  “With the Winter Games coming up, P.G.’s 100th anniversary we will stay very much involved with this and graffiti affects our equipment as well, that people see out in the streets, so we’re definitely a large stakeholder in all of this.”

Now the question arises that, if there was so much graffiti in this park in the first place what is to prevent it from being back, say, within a week?  Peddie says “in speaking with the residents they’re going to keep a close eye on things for sure, the RCMP and Community Policing are definitely very involved in keeping their eye on this location as will we as well.  If it starts to become an occurrence we’ll deal with that situation as it comes.”

Although some rain was predicted for Saturday afternoon, Peddie said there were no concerns about the paint job.  “It’s a latex wood stain, so it penetrates very quickly and deeply into the wood.  It’s also very fast-drying.  The paint, by the way, was all donated by Rona here in town.  They’ve donated all the rollers, all the trays and all the brushes and we definitely want to give them a shout out for being such a great community ambassador.  This would not have been possible without Rona’s help, specifically Barb there.”

Peddie says the Telus field techs have an eye out for graffiti.  “They take pictures of it, send it back to me and I forward that on to Cpl. Craig Douglass at the RCMP, so there’s always a continuous record of what’s going on.”