The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Kindness rocks’ brings a little joy to the day
Inspiration is a stone’s throw away with hand-painted rocks
SHORELINE >> With each serving of frozen yogurt, customers can get a little extra dollop of “kindness” at Sweet Luna’s Frozen Desserts & Teas. This kindness extends far beyond the serving counter, with people visiting and sharing in the joy of the shop’s sidewalk garden filled with rocks hand-painted with inspirational messages.
“We all feel the past few years there’s so much sadness and not enough tolerance,” says Sweet Luna’s owner Doreen Day. “One day I was like, ‘What can I do to make people feel a little bit happier?’”
That was when The Kindness Rock Project was started.
“Since then, a lot of customers paint rocks and drop them off and take rocks and so there’s always different rocks,” says Day.
The Kindness Rocks Project is spreading along the shoreline. During her summer visit to Cape Cod, Marlie Ioime scours the beaches with her husband, Gene, searching for the smoothest rocks to design. Back at home in Branford, she finds comfort in meticulously creating individual, unique pieces of artwork.
“I like to be creative,” says Ioime. “I love to draw and paint and doodle. I’ve never done anything like this before and I like to do things for people and I like to surprise people.”
Short motivational quotes such as: “You’ve Got This! Be the Sunshine. If you Stumble Make it Part of the Dance!” painted in swirly or bold type, along with detailed, colorful images, promise to brighten the finder’s day.
Sweet Luna’s garden continues to flourish with new painted stones and new visitors even while the business is on winter hiatus.
Day recalls see kindness rocks for the first time on her hikes in Scorton Creek in Sandwich, Mass., with her dog, Luna.
“I didn’t touch them,” she says. “I just looked at them and I really loved and enjoyed them and I had no idea that you could even take them. I just thought, ‘Wow, these are so beautiful. I’m out hiking with my dog and all these inspirational quotes are out here.’”
It was back at home, at her computer, that she came upon Megan Murphy’s Kindness Rocks Project. Murphy, in a phone call from her home in Massachusetts, is thrilled to hear about her Kindness Rocks Project spreading across the shoreline here and the globe, she says.
“I love it,” says Murphy. “That’s the whole point.
“It didn’t start as that being the point. It started as a hobby, but being on Cape Cod it really took off because people from around the world came to the Cape and they’d find the rocks and then they’d go home and they’d start the project in their communities.”
Murphy is quick to add that she started the project, but it is the people like Day and Ioime that are help to propagate it.
“I’m just the seed,” says Murphy. “I’m the one who planted the idea and I’m thrilled that it has taken off.”
Design tools used include Sharpie Permanent Markers, acrylic paint, shellac and Modge Podge. Many of the rocks are designed to withstand all types of weather.
Ioime surreptitiously leaves her thought-provoking rocks at Madison’s Hammonasset Beach State Park, Branford’s Foote Memorial Park and Supply Pond Park, East Haven Town Beach, Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven, Chatfield Hollow in Killingworth and Guilford’s Mill Pond for visitors to discover.
While Ioime’s work began anonymously, she now has created a Facebook page for her part of the project. The back of each rock is emblazoned with @RocksbyMarlie, #The Kindness Rocks Project. She encourages individuals to post photos of their finds on her Facebook page Rocks by Marlie.
“It makes me feel great that someone got a kick out of a rock — if it was a funny one or if it meant something to them on a deeper level,” she says about the feedback she gets from people who’ve uncovered them. “It means a lot to me.” “Keep Swimming” was the
sentiment on one of Ioime’s kindness rock that Kenneth Corby, 72, found on a picnic bench at the East Haven Town Beach. Corby is at the beach early every morning with his metal detector, but this is was a special find.
“I believe I was meant to find it,” he says. “It brought a little smile to my face, a little joy to the day. It came at a good time in my life. I lost my wife in 2015, and it (finding the rock) was kind of a happy thing, it brought some cheer to that day.”
Sitting on a shelf in his house, he looks at it for the pleasant memory it sparks.
“It’s nice to have,” Corby says. “I can look at it and think of a nice day down at the beach.”
Ioime enjoys the solace she finds in creating the kindness rocks.
“Sometimes, I get up at an ungodly hour, like at four o’clock in the morning, and I’ll start painting.
“The time just goes by. You’re not even thinking about it. Like it’s 4 a.m. and you’re just sitting here painting, having coffee and the next thing you know it’s 7 a.m.”
She puts much thought into each and every uplifting message or heartwarming sentiment she paints on the stones.
“I try to think about struggles that people might be having,” she reflects. “I try to think if I was going through something what would the message be that I’d want to see or that mean something to me.”
Day says she makes sure there are always rocks in her shop for her staff to create their own masterpieces, when and if they find the time.
In the summer she bikes to Old Saybrook’s Knollwood Beach to collect her treasures.
“It’s kind of peaceful and nice,” says Day. “I set up, back on my desk in my office, all the supplies that my employees and I need to make rocks, so a lot of time when they’re out on their break, having their lunch or their dinner or just taking a break, they make a rock.”
Sweet Luna Employee Diana Chan, 21, is always trying to think of new and different ways to decorate the palm-sized pebbles.
“For some of the rocks, I would spray paint them so they would be colorful,” the Old Saybrook resident says. “I did that at home and then brought a whole bunch of the colored ones in for the girls to work on and make themselves.”
Chan gets much of her inspiration from a notebook she always carries with her to write down meaningful sayings and quotes.
“I just write down things that make me feel good, for whenever I need to read them. So I just pull a bunch of little sayings from there most of the time, or if anything that just kind of pops into my head.”
“I just think it’s really nice to pass along something positive to someone,” she says.
“That’s the reason why I have my little book of the sayings for myself, but other people don’t have that and if they need to see a positive word somewhere then it might make their day a bit better and it usually does. I think people have a pretty positive reaction to it.”
The Sweet Luna’s Kindness Rock Project is really a community event, spreading kindness one rock at a time.
“We love it because the kids come in with rocks,” says Day. “They’re adorable and they can’t wait to show us their rocks and they go out and put them in the garden and they look to see their rocks there.”
Yet how long they will remain there and where they go next is never known. That is what makes this garden and the Kindness Rocks Project so special, says Day.
“Other people pick up their rocks,” she says, “and we don’t know where they go, but hopefully, they go to nice places and they give some people some inspiration and peace.”