Finding a Glosta Rocks with the kind message “All You Need is Love” sure put a smile on my face last week on the way to PiPl monitoring. I left the rock there for the next person crossing the footbridge to see, but after reading the article in the Gloucester Times, I know now to send the photo to the Glosta Rocks facebook page.

Glosta Rocks! Facebook group promotes kindness, community with hidden, painted popples

• By Joann Mackenzie Staff Writer 
• Jun 17, 2018

Like messages in a bottle, they travel. You can find one on Stacy Boulevard, and if you happen to be going to L.A., leave it for someone else to find on Sunset Boulevard.

And like Easter egg hunts, they tend to elicit puns. So here goes the first one. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you probably know that “kindness rocks” — the finding of, painting of, hiding of, hunting of, and, importantly, posting of — have gone viral, online and offline, and not just in grass-roots America, but all around the world.

If, while strolling on Stacy Boulevard this spring you’ve spotted kids tip-toeing tenuously through the tulips staring intently down at the ground and wondered what they were up to, it wasn’t “Pokemon Go.”

It was rock hunting. Kindness rock hunting.

What are kindness rocks? They are rocks —small, smooth, flat surfaced stones or popples, the kind you’d find on the beach or in a garden — brightly painted, often with positive messages of good cheer, encouragement, inspiration — “Be kind,” “Let a smile be your umbrella,” “Share!” “Shine!” “Joy!” Just as often, they’re just painted: sometimes quite cleverly, even brilliantly.

In Gloucester, there’s nothing new about using rocks to send messages of hope and encouragement. Art Haven director Traci Corbett says that rock painting in one form or another has long been a popular activity at the Main Street studio, and it’ll be offering it at its new summer extension space on the lower level of 76 Roger St. as well as at its Cape Ann Farmers Market table.

Then there are Dogtown’s great inscribed boulders. They’ve been around since the Great Depression when local entrepreneur Roger Babson saw in their smooth stone faces an opportunity to provide work for local unemployed stone masons, having them inscribe in the stones the kind of words and messages of encouragement the American Dream is built on. “Industry! Ideas! Integrity! Courage! Spiritual Power! Never try, never win!” the stones tell passing strangers.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE