School Graffiti Fighters Chalk Up a Success

Never mind that the graffiti comes back each night.

For a group of Eastside teen-agers, it’s enough that they can clean up their school in time for the start of classes each morning.

Led by their school counselor, about 15 Hollenbeck Junior High School students have met at 6 a.m. every day since last fall to paint over graffiti sprayed on classroom buildings at night.

Thursday, the last day of school, was no different.

Armed with cleanser, brushes and cans of paint, the group moved from the front of the campus to its playing fields, looking for the telltale insignia of gangs as dawn broke over Boyle Heights.

It took nearly two hours to cover most of the markings--pretty much an average morning’s work for the group, which calls itself the J.D. Junkman Crew, after its counselor, leader and all-around father figure, James DeFondo (Junkman) Person.

A former antique dealer with a doctorate in education, Person drives about a dozen of the students to school every morning. The rest walk or are dropped off by parents.

The Junkman Crew operates on a strictly volunteer basis. But Person said he occasionally gives the members certain rewards, like pizza parties and Christmas dinners. He requires 60 hours of work before a student can be eligible for such perks, however.

“I want to be sure they are committed to the group,” he said.

Clyde Leon, 13, has not missed a day since he joined the crew last fall. He put in 500 hours between September and January, an average of five hours a day.

“I don’t like it (the school) to look messy and ugly,” the seventh-grade A student said.

Gloria Arzate, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, said she and her friends participate because “we like the way Person takes care of us, so we got to take care of him.”

“These kids aren’t goody-goodies,” Person said. “We’ve got extremes on both ends in terms of school performance.

Person started the program informally three years ago. Last fall, his principal was so impressed that she put him in charge of graffiti abatement for the school at 2510 E. 6th St.

They even won a gang battle, of sorts: The crew kept painting over a graffiti message that showed up every morning until the vandals finally scrawled, “We Quit,” and never defaced the wall again.