Neighbors Organized To Abolish Graffiti (NoTAG)

NoTAG's History

NoTAG (Neighbors Organized To Abolish Graffiti) is a volunteer group of Hedrick Acres residents which formed four years ago and began removing graffiti regularly in the neighborhood on May 7, 2006. Initially, four or five regular volunteers went out once a week and patrolled the entire neighborhood, removing what they could and reporting the rest to the city for professional removal.
NoTAG Stats (click to enlarge)Currently there is one active volunteer going out a couple of times a month.

In January of 2007, NoTAG began a partnership with the city's Department of Neighborhood Resources (now Housing and Community Development) to share graffiti removal tips and techniques with other neighborhoods. To date, NoTAG has participated in seven training workshops organized by DNR, one workshop sponsored by the Ward 3 Office, has spoken at more than 16 neighborhood association meetings, in addition to working on two major graffiti cleanup projects in other neighborhoods under the auspices of the United Way's "Days of Caring" program and helping with the Amphi Neighborhood graffiti cleanup event this past March.

NoTAG can always use more volunteers and is willing to provide training to anyone interested in learning graffiti removal techniques. Through experience, NoTAG members have learned the best way to work on various surfaces and types of tags to remove graffiti as non-destructively as possible. If you want to remove graffiti near your house, but don't want to officially join NoTAG, please do still contact us for training or advice, as some signs and surfaces can be damaged by improper removal attempts. Drop us a line in the Contact Us section of this site!

So far, over 5,900 tags have been removed from the Hedrick Acres Neighborhood. The amount of graffiti spiked in 2009 but has come down a bit since (see chart).

By roughly one year increments since we started, here are the number of new tags we've seen:

May 2006-May 2007 = 824 tags
June 2007-May 2008 = 711 tags
June 2008-May 2009 = 2434 tags
June 2009-May 2010 = 1931 tags

Currently, NoTAG probably uses about $30-40 worth of materials every month. The Neighborhood Association has provided reimbursement for some of those materials, and some residents have generously donated money specifically for graffiti removal. Heartfelt thanks go out to all who support NoTAG's efforts!

Last updated June 2010.