People in the Henry County community are coming together in a unique way to honor local hospital staff.

  The Henry Arts Alliance, The Gallery at Hood Street and Facebook group Henry County Rocks, GA have teamed up to paint rocks to give to the staff at Piedmont Henry Hospital to brighten their days. 

  Jessica Goodman, Stockbridge resident, saw a post on Facebook where people placed painted rocks at a hospital for their staff. She presented the idea to the Henry Arts Alliance and the idea took off. 

  The Henry Arts Alliance was looking for new ideas to encourage hospital staff, as they had previously commissioned chalk art on the sidewalks outside of Piedmont Henry Hospital.

  “We were looking for ideas,” said Lynna Schmidt,  president of the Henry Arts Alliance. “Jessica Goodman had a fabulous idea. We really love when people come to us with ideas.”

  Goodman enlisted the help of her family to begin painting the rocks and it turned into a memorable experience for herself and her three children.

  “We do a lot of art projects all the time,” said Goodman. “When I suggested painting rocks, they loved the idea. They came up with their own ideas with what they wanted to do on the rocks.”

  She hopes that painting these rocks for the staff at Piedmont Henry Hospital will show her children that acts of kindness towards others is important. 

  “It’s just important for them to know that kindness is still out there and there’s still hope and there’s still a way to make people a little bit happy,” said Goodman. 

  Over 60 rocks have been painted by Goodman and her children so far and they plan to paint more now that school has ended. 

  The theme for the rocks is ‘encouragement,’ and the rocks are  intended to “make hospital staff smile.”

  Some of the completed rocks read ‘Real heroes wear scrubs,’ ‘Nurse = Hero,’ ‘We love EMTs,’ ‘Docs Rock,’ and some are painted to look like hospital staff wearing masks.

  April Brumm is the founder of Henry County Rocks, GA where members of the community paint rocks and place or hide them for others to find in public locations.  

  “It has become a pastime that has brought families together,” said Brumm. “It’s a very inexpensive way to pass the time and then to spread kindness. It’s a good lesson for everybody in ‘don’t give so that you can get back or get recognition.’ You leave that rock out not knowing if anybody will ever post it or ever say thank you, but knowing that the person that finds it is going to smile.”

  The Henry Arts Alliance approached Brumm with the idea to paint rocks for local hospital staff. She loved the idea and shared the information with her Henry County Rocks, GA group and its over 5,000 members. 

  “The whole point is just to make somebody smile,” said Brumm. “The point is to say, ‘we see you and we appreciate you,’ and we may not be able to make everything go away but, for one second, here’s a smile.”

  The call also went out to Henry County Arts Alliance artists to paint rocks as well. 

  As of Monday, May 18, there have been 100 rocks donated to the rock painting initiative.

  Schmidt says that they will continue to collect rocks to give to Piedmont Henry Hospital until the rocks stop being painted and dropped off in the box at The Gallery at Hood Street. However, a goal of 1,500 rocks has been set, in order to give a rock to each of the Piedmont Henry Hospital staff.

  “We will start putting them at the employee’s entrance. They can take one or share it or put it in their pocket,” said Schmidt. “We will just keep painting until we reach everybody.” 

  Those that are interested in painting rocks for hospital staff can drop them off Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at The Gallery at Hood Street, located at 136 Hood Street in McDonough. A box is placed outside of the gallery for a no contact drop-off.

  For more information, contact Gloria Hughes at gloria.hughes 1@gmail.com.