OLD ORCHARD BEACH — Painted rocks are popping up everywhere. Brightly colored and whimsical, they’re nesting in beaches, resting on public benches, hiding in flower gardens along sidewalks.

They’re kindness rocks, meant to connect and inspire people, and help create a kinder world.

The Kindness Rocks Project began about two and a half years ago, when Megan Murphy found herself in a place of transition after selling a business of many years. She took to walking the beaches near her home in Cape Cod, and having lost her parents in her 20s, she looked for heart-shaped rocks or pieces of sea glass, as divine messages or inspiration.

As Murphy continued her walks, she began to think that maybe there were other people who could use a sign of inspiration, and she painted a few and put them out on the beach. 

After she received a phone call from a friend saying that she had found one of the rocks and it had really changed her day in a positive way, Murphy knew she had to continue the effort.

Murphy painted more rocks, and after her daughter’s input, started marking them with the hashtag #TheKindnessRocksProject, to give people a clickable way to post pictures of the rocks online.  

Because Cape Cod is a popular vacation spot, many people from outside Massachusetts picked up the rocks or took the idea home with them. The Kindness Rocks Project has grown in ways Murphy could never imagine, thanks to the energy of many amazing people. Murphy said she receives emails every day from people who have been effected by finding a kindness rock, including a recent message from a woman who while on a walk with her children found a rock that said “The best project you will ever work on is you,” and it gave her the courage to continue with her walk, and not give in to a panic attack, a side effect of a thyroid condition.

“It’s pretty much in every state now and it’s all across the world,” said Murphy. “It’s taken off and become powerful.”

On a walk on July 4, this reporter found a rock decorated with an emoji face painted in a cheerful yellow in a street side flower garden on Atlantic Avenue in Old Orchard Beach, a short block away from the beach. The bottom of the rock asked the finder to give the rock away or re-hide it, and noted it was from the Colebrook Public Library, in New Hampshire.

Colebrook Public Library Assistant Children’s Librarian Sharon Ellingwood White was thrilled to hear that someone from Maine had found one of the library’s rocks and re-hid it.

White heard of the Kindness Rocks Project after watching a television news story, and thought participating in this type of project would fit in with the New Hampshire Summer Reading Program theme, “Build a Better World.”

White has incorporated a weekly rock painting group into the summer activities at the library. The activity is much more than just painting rocks, it’s about changing someone’s day, she said.

“Every single person who picks up one of these rocks smiles,” said White. “It’s been so rewarding. It just makes people happy.”

She said a few hundred of the painted rocks have been scattered in the Colebrook community, and she has heard stories of parents going for walks at night with their children to look for rocks. She surmised that the rock in Old Orchard Beach may have made it’s way up to Maine during a recent Colebrook Recreation trip to Funtown Splashtown USA and a Sea Dogs game.

There are also local Kindness Rocks Project efforts.

Michelle Leger, a Massachusetts resident who spends part of her summers in Ocean Park, said she saw a photo of the Kindness Rocks project on Instagram, and decided participating in the project would be a nice way to honor her sister, Lisa Miller, who died in 2016, and whom she described as a thoughtful person who was very artistic.

“She would have done this in a heart beat,” she said.

Leger, using spray paint, permanent markers and nail polish, has completed about 25 rocks and is working on more. Many of her designs relay positive and affirming messages, including a favorite expression of her sister’s, “Your life is made of two dates and a dash. Make the most of the dash.” Some, like one that reads “SEA LA VIE,” are beach themed, and others have been made in honor of friends who have had breast cancer. 

Leger said she’s hidden the painted rocks in the beach areas of Ocean Park and downtown Old Orchard Beach, going out at 4:30 a.m. when no one else is around to see where she put the rocks. She said she plans in the future to plant some painted rocks in the woods in her hikes around the Fitchburg, Massachusetts area. 

Leger said she hadn’t done artwork before this project, and she enjoys painting the rocks and coming up with designs. She said she’s always liked to to do random acts of kindness and spread positive thoughts and likes the thought of the painted rocks making a person’s day a little brighter. 

— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 325 or [email protected].