Virginia State Attorney General Bob McDonnell came to Harrisonburg to clean up Graffiti and prevent gangs.

He has made several steps in the recent months to cut down on gang activity in Virginia.

Most of those changes were in the courts and law enforcment.

He says that work needs to be done on the other side of gang prevention by cleaning up the communities where they start.

Holly Johnson has lived in the spotswood trailer park for 11 years. She says gang graffiti is nothing new.

"The graffiti thing has been here since I've lived here," says Johnson.

Now that graffiti is being cleaned up. Its a step community groups, police, and local businesses are taking, to face the growing gang problem head on.

From painting, to planting trees it also helps residents take pride in their neighborhoods.

Attorney General Bob McDonnell says they've done a lot of work preventing gangs with law enforcement and punishment, now its time to stop it at its source.

"Their going to have a lot of pride in whats going on so with the first sign of gangs hanging around or defamation or destruction of community problem they're going to immediately call our police or sheriffs and say we've got a problem out here," Mcdonnell says.

Holly Johnson doesn't know if the work done today will help keep gangs away, but she says thinks its a good start.

"It really needed to be cleaned up and the kids really need something to do around here, the come home from school and basically just walk around the neighborhood without anything else to do, so maybe if we get the swing set in and maybe the basketball stuff, maybe they'll all come down here, get together and make new friends and it'll be good."

Work on this community isn't over. A playground with a swingset will be up in two weeks.

They're also hoping for a basketball court in the future.