Canyon Creek Elementary School art students are spreading kindness across the globe after painting and traveling with “kindness rocks” that share encouraging messages.
Canyon Creek art teacher Mary Weir brought the project to students as part of the Texas Art Education Association Big Art Day. The whole school used time in art, music or physical education classes to create their work of art on rocks and add in a URL to track the rocks around the world.
“We wanted to do something for Big Art Day that connects kindness and rocks since we’re Round Rock ISD,” Weir said. “On the back of every rock we put a Tiny URL so when people find the rock, they can go to the URL and tell us where the found it.”
A rock painted by Rhtick Suraj, Canyon Creek second-grade student, was the first rock to be found. The rock was taken across the Atlantic Ocean and found in France.
“I gave my rock to my father and he took it to France,” Rhtick said. “He placed it right next to a hotel and my father’s friend took the rock and put it somewhere else in France, then someone else found it and placed it in another place in France so now it’s still there.”
The rocks have been found across the United States, in multiple countries including France and India, local restaurants and gyms, all with an effort to spread kindness and goodwill to strangers.
“We did this to spread kindness for the world,” said Sofia Vareila, Canyon Creek third-grade student. “When you drop a rock in water, there’s ripples and our rocks spread smiles like the ripples. If someone has a bad day and they find the rock, it makes their day better.”
