“It made me feel good to do something for other people,” said Sophie, a third-grader in Mrs. Thomas’ class at Lee.
Chloe, a fifth-grader in Mrs. Kahafer’s class at Page, agreed. “I was just happy when we went for the walk and we put the rocks at the mailboxes. I just felt good about it,” she said.
Like most everyone, the girls were getting bored of sitting at home. They decorated their windows and played games. They do homework and Facetime with friends, but they needed to do something else. They wanted to do something to help others.
With a pile of rocks in their backyard left from clearing the lot to build their home, they came up with a plan. They decided to paint rocks and put them at each of their neighbor’s mailboxes. With 30 neighbors, it took awhile as the girls carefully considered a specific design and color for each neighbor.
“We thought about our neighbors and what they liked and kind of made a rock special for each house,” said Chloe. “We wanted to paint the rocks and hoped it makes them smile.”
Chloe said they first painted the rocks with colorful backgrounds then added inspirational words like “hope,” “dream” and “believe.” Some rocks have rainbows and smiley faces or flowers and hearts.
Once the rocks were painted, the girls and their mom took a walk around the neighborhood placing each special rock near the mailbox at each home. “We didn’t really tell people we were doing it,” said the girl’s mom, Monika. “But there were people out walking when we were putting the rocks out too and they saw us.”
Since then, the family has heard of neighbors going for walks and children running from house to house to find the next painted rock.
“We didn’t do this for attention or anything. We just wanted to do something nice for everyone. It’s such a small thing, but it makes people feel better. We’ve talked with the girls about compassion and being sympathetic and just trying to help others,” said Monika. “It’s just a way we can help take some of the stress and sadness away and it helped us feel better too.”
Sophie said she misses her friends but has kept busy playing games and doing school work. She sometimes gets to Facetime with friends on Zoom. Chloe said it’s been hard to be away from friends and school. “I miss my teacher and friends and being in school. I was supposed to be Anna in the play (Frozen Jr.).”
Both girls said seeing all their neighbors enjoying the rocks makes them happy. “It feels good to help someone else be happy,” said Sophie.