Spreading kindness one rock at a time
Inspiring messages left for strangers to find
The idea behind kindness rocks is as simple as kindness itself. It’s as infectious as a smile.
Here’s how it works:
Gather stones. Flat smooth ones work best. The size is up to you. Big enough to see, but small enough to pick up and put in your pocket.
Decorate them. Some people paint elaborate pictures of sunsets, animals and trees. Some paint intricate designs, mazes or mandalas. Some, just goofy smiles.
Many people like to add encouraging remarks. “Seize the day!” “You’re beautiful!” “You are loved.”
Then, drop them.
Drop one near a park bench. Or a bus stop. Or a playground.
Place one on a gas pump. On a tree branch. On the beach.
The idea is to place your rocks where someone will discover it. The idea is to cheer someone up. The idea is to commit a random act of kindness.
Think of them as seeds. Sow them widely.
They’re called kindness rocks, and an uncounted number of individuals and groups across the globe are creating them.
Probably, people have been leaving encouraging messages for strangers for as long as people have been able to write, but Megan Murphy is most famously the originator of the Kindness Rocks Project, a movement with a reach that can only be described as far and wide.
But groups not technically associated with the Kindness Rocks Project are popping up all over the place.
Crystal Zagorski, who lives in Milwaukee, started a Facebook group, #WIRocks, a couple of years ago. She had discovered a similar group in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, and almost immediately started her own.
The #WIRocks page now has 1,453 members. (If you visit the page, you’ll notice the group had originally been called 414 Rocks. It took Crystal a minute and a half to realize, after she created the first page, that people well beyond the 414 Milwaukee area code were interested in joining).
A recent weekend morning, Crystal, her husband Sam, and their three kids set up a banquet table in their driveway.
They covered the table with brown paper and set out eight pink plastic cups filled with a variety of markers and poured out a pile of stones, some as small as blueberries, some as large as baked potatoes.
Friends Heather and George Zunker came over. Bloody Mary’s were served.
“We like to do them as a family and with friends,” Crystal said.
The people in Crystal’s group tag the back of the rocks they create: #wirocks, #spreadjoy, #rockout. People who find them often post pictures and thank yous on the #WIRocks Facebook page.
People who find the rocks are welcomed to keep them, but plenty of people choose to rehide them for someone else to enjoy.
It’s not unusual to see a picture of the same rock posted again and again.
One day, there’s a photo of it displayed by a smiling child. A few days later, there it is again, in someone’s guitar case. Weeks go by, there it is again, on a park bench.
“Kindness ripples,” Crystal says.