Graffiti has been popping uparound Central Wisconsin this year. In Merrill, a young man took cleaning it up into his own hands.
Between a baseball field and a playground at Ott's Park, the number "666", a swastika, and profanities were sprayed on a wall.
Daniel Vaughn and his father, also named Daniel, frequent the park. They clean up what others leave behind. Normally they're cleaning up litter. This time, the thirteen-year-old decided to do something much bigger.
"I just don't like people ruining other people's things," said Vaughn. He picked up paint from the store and covered-up the graffiti. He said, "it wasn't the perfect color paint but I wanted to get the stuff off the walls."
Another Dan, Dan Wendorf, is director of Parks and Recreation for Merrill. He said, what Daniel did was amazing. "When you look at all the things going on through calendar year 2020," he said. "To have a thirteen year old show us a true and tremendous act of kindness, it's amazing. I don't really know how else to describe it."
To Vaughn though, his act is not amazing or even out of the ordinary. It's an example that he hopes others will follow.
"I do it just because it's the right thing to do," said Vaughn. Really, it's not no religion or anything like that, it's just doing the good thing. Doing the good thing for other people."
Doing the good thing for other people, that's a patience and a practice he hopes his neighbors will follow.
