Peace, joy and kindness do not grow on trees . . . or so we have been told.
At San Marcos Academy, fourth and fifth grade students wanted to alter the laws of nature and allow the fruits of the spirit to take root on their campus. With that goal in mind, they implemented the Kindness Rocks Project.
Rocking Kindness: Fruits of the Spirit
“I had read about this project and connected it with our daily devotionals as we discussed the fruits of the spirit,” Sherry Christensen, Lower School teacher, said. “It is an art project with the goal of inspiring others through randomly placed rocks. The idea is to recruit every person who stumbles upon a rock to join in the pursuit of inspiring others through random acts of kindness.”
As a first step in the project, the students collected some river rocks to paint and decorate. They then painted a different fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) onto each brightly colored rock.
Rocking Kindness: Asking Permission
The moment of truth came when the group scheduled a meeting with Academy President Jimmie Scott to ask for his permission to “litter” the campus with the rocks. The students explained their plan, submitted their rocks for inspection, and were given the green light to place them on campus.
Like a herd of Easter bunnies, the students quickly placed their rocks along several campus walking paths, where they have already attracted attention and positive responses.
“As I explained the project to my students, we discussed how everyone will see these rocks on campus and immediately smile,” Christensen said. “We decided it would be great to give our students and staff that sense of joy. They loved getting creative with the rocks and are looking forward to making more in the near future.”
–The goal of #TheKindnessRocksProject is to promote random acts of kindness to unsuspecting recipients whether by painting and dropping inspirational rocks or some other cool creative way to bring kindness into the world.