Vandal covers Bucks Co. swim club in graffiti

LANGHORNE, Pa. (WPVI) -- A Bucks County swim club is getting some major community support after its pool was covered in graffiti.

Someone vandalized the Neshaminy Woods Swim club in Langhorne over the weekend.

"How could anyone do something like this?" said club president Gerri Tomasco.

Tomasco says her brother called her Sunday morning saying the property was covered in graffiti.

But Tomasco admits, she never dreamed it was this bad.

"It just took my breath away, it really broke my heart. There was graffiti everywhere you could look," she said.

The vandals spray-painted everything from the bathroom sinks, to the pool house wall that was decorated by local children, to the pool itself, which had recently been drained in advance of winter.

Tomasco says at first she didn't know what to do.

"It's non-profit, so we have no money to put into anything, and I really thought it was going to be the end of the pool," she said.

But responding officers informed Geri about a little-known program called TAG.

It doubles as an acronym for Towns Against Graffiti, and as a play on a slang term for graffiti.

It's run by Anthony Hartman, and his job is to remove or cover-up graffiti as quickly and completely as possible in the southern Bucks County towns that have signed up for the program.

Hartman says for him, it's a labor of love.

"I went to St. Ephraim's and I went to Bensalem High School, so it's very gratifying to me to help beautify and keep lower Bucks County looking as good as it has and as it should be," he said.

Hartman says the Neshaminy Woods job is particularly bad, but he says it'll be as good as new by the end of the week.

That is music to Geri Tomasco's ears.

"I feel so much better, it's a wonderful program," she said. "There is a happy ending."

TAG is funded by donations, though any time a vandal is caught that person - or parents, if the suspect is a minor - is handed a bill to pay for the cleanup.