Story highlights Family home and car are painted with racial slurs while they're on vacation

Neighbors rally to clean up the mess before the family returns

(CNN) Marvin Phillips, his wife and five of his children piled into their motor home for a family vacation last week. In their absence, their house and truck were painted with racial slurs.

Neighbors and friends of the Tenino, Washington, family heard about the racist graffiti and on Saturday began the monumental task of cleaning it up, all while the Phillipses were away.

Community member Heidi Russell said, "He's got small kids and they couldn't even enjoy their vacation. I couldn't let this happen. If I have to be out there by myself, I'll do it." So she posted an all-call on Facebook.

"It's too cruddy of a world to have this kind of stuff happen in your own community and not do something about it," Mike Vanderhoof, who works for the county fire district, told CNN affiliate KOMO. "Main thing is we wanted to make sure the family didn't see this. Nobody [should] see this kind of junk in their life. Nobody needs that kind of hate speech."

The cleanup

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