AMH2020 student*
“We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more
laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.”- Ellen DeGeneres. This
quote quiet honestly explains my motives as a human being. This world is filled
with such negativity and bad juju that I just want to be able to give someone a
reason to smile and be positive. I know I cannot throw a rock at someone and
give them good juju, but I can paint them with positivity and happiness (although
it would be nice to throw them at some people). 😊
Tally Rocks
is a group that started on Facebook. This group of people would paint rocks,
some so amazing and beautiful I have no idea why they would take so long to
paint a rock they are going to give away and some that you knew were going to
be given away in heartbeat because the lack of an ability to be artsy (me).
This group was created to spread happiness and to get people out and
experiencing all the beautiful parks that are in Tallahassee and South Georgia.
The purpose of Tally Rocks is to paint a rock or rocks anyway you want with
something positive or that makes you happy. Once your down you take it to one
of the many parks or anywhere honestly, I have seen a lot at Starbucks and
Publix. When you find one you are supposed to take a picture of it and post it on
Facebook, so the painter can see who found it and then you are to re hide it
for someone else to find. It’s like a never-ending scavenger hunt. I LOVE IT!!
I started doing Tally Rocks back over the summer, I work for a summer camp at a middle school that is right next to the greenway. As a craft we had the kids paint there own “masterpieces”, many just had rapper names like “lil boat” written on them. Afterwards we went for a walk to go hide the rocks. Majority of them ended up in the lake trying to and I quote’ “knock the gators out, Go Noles!” The others were hidden but everyone was happy and had a great time, no once was there fighting, or on their cellphones, all the kids were happy and enjoying the nature and fresh air, not the nasty gym air. I also would look for rocks after work with my best friend and her younger brothers before she left me to go to Gainesville for school (not cool). I have continued to participate to this day.
Once I was
told we had this project and the requirement I knew exactly what I wanted to do
it on, Tally Rocks. The thing I love most about this is that it relates to my
deepest value, happiness. We only have one chance to live this life we were
given, and I think it is terrible to live it in sadness, fear, and negativity.
Who wants to die sad and having done nothing that makes them or others truly
happy? Happiness isn’t something that is hard to obtain, if can be something as
little as listening to your favorite song or reading a funny quote or meme. The
best thing about happiness is that once it starts it spreads like wild fire.
Its like a drug, once you feel the endorphins in your body and the serotonin
begins rushing into your brain creating happy thoughts, you never want to be without
that feeling. I firmly believe that happiness is the key to living a good life.
Through these rocks, I can give someone that ray or sunshine on a gloomy day. The
person can stop see the creation and feel at least a small bit of enjoyment.
All my life
I have wanted to do something good for my community when I grew up. I also knew
it wanted to involve helping the younger generations that would be walking in
my footsteps. Thought it has changed from being a teacher, (No way in hell I
could handle that) I still want to work with children. I have chosen to become
a speech pathologist because not only am I able to help someone, I am able to
help children better their language skills that will shape them for the rest of
their lives. Seeing my best friend’s younger brothers’ excitement about
participating in this experience brought so much love and joy into my heart.
I started
out painting the rocks by myself, but I began to feel as though I wasn’t
enjoying it anymore. I didn’t have others around me this time to share in the
excitement like I did over summer. I decide to call up my best friend and as if
her brothers would be interested in painting rocks with me. The next day my
phone was blowing up with text from the boys asking when we were going to paint.
Later that day, I brought all the supplies over and we began to paint. Not even
3 minutes later, the only house was filled with middle schoolers who had come
to paint the rocks with us. I can honestly say it was a well spend 2 hours.
(This photo was before the avalanche of children arrived).
After the rocks dried for about a week, we took them to the
park and spread them around. Everyone wanted to find the best hiding space for
there rock. Some put them in plan sight like on the running trail or on a post
while other hide them in more difficult places, like in between 2 wedges of the
bridge or in a hole of a tree branch. We spent a good 3 hours out at the
greenway
hiding these rocks. We even found a few of our own that we later re-hid at another park.
hiding these rocks. We even found a few of our own that we later re-hid at another park.
I believe that this experience will help the community by
bringing people together to show everyone that there is happiness to be found
in everything. No matter how small. I know that Tally Rocks has taught me to
find beauty and happiness in things other than people and social media.
