Vision 2020 and other local organizations are looking for volunteers to help out various community improvement projects this summer, including a new program to replace the city’s bad graffiti with good graffiti.

Vision 2020 announced the new graffiti task force program Monday as part of an effort to beautify the city of Austin.

The program comes in response to concern over gang signs and inappropriate graffiti in some areas of the city, according to Geoff Smith, a Vision 2020 volunteer. Yet organizers found few people wanted to help remove the graffiti through washing it away.

That’s when they remembered Boo Roth, a Buddhist monk from Rochester who painted an electric transformer behind Steve’s Pizza on Fourth Avenue Northwest last summer. Roth created a new work of art on the transformer, similar to other projects he had completed in Rochester.

With that in mind, volunteers hope to paint over bad graffiti with better graffiti, whatever it may be.

“We decided to take a shot at it,” Smith said.

Smith and his family painted over gang signs on a fence behind the Austin Utilities downtown power plant earlier this month. Now Vision 2020 hopes people will sign up through the city’s Parks and Recreation Department to help get rid of bad graffiti in Austin.

Smith said it doesn’t matter what kind of new graffiti is put up as long as it’s not inappropriate or gang-related.

Parks and Recreation Director Kim Underwood said the city is also looking for help on April 26, when the city’s Community Pride Day is set. Residents will gather throughout Austin to pick up garbage and refuse throughout public parks and other areas from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, with an initial gathering at the Plaza Lot near the Mower County Jail and Justice Center, where volunteers can have a quick meal beforehand.

Vision 2020 is also looking for volunteers for the Cedar River Watershed District’s Adopt-a-River program, according to Tim Ruzek, co-char of the Vision 2020 Waterways committee. The Adopt-a-River program has taken more than 700 tires out of waterways in Mower County over the past few years, as well as thousands of pounds of garbage, Ruzek said.

To sign up to be part of the graffiti task force, contact the city Parks and Rec department at 507-433-1881.