What began as a game between a New Jersey art teacher and her colleague’s children has spread to our area.
Levittown resident Jamie Eschbach, originally from Trenton, began the L-Town Rocks page on Facebook after seeing posts about those in the Hamilton, New Jersey community painting garden rocks and hiding them for others to find. The group, Hamilton Rocks, which began in August, has already grossed several thousand members.
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People from throughout the community are encouraged to collect rocks from around their yard or a local park, or even pick them up at a local lawn or garden store, before spending time with family and friends painting encouraging or happy designs on them and then placing them back into the community for someone else to find. Residents, according to Eschbach, can even keep a rock they find and love, but they’re asked to replace it with at least one other that they’ve decorated.
Lora Durr, an art teacher at Crockett Middle School, told Mercer Space that she was inspired to begin the project after attending the School for Art Leaders this past summer – which encouraged educators to spread creativity throughout their community. After completing the program, Durr began collecting rocks from around her property and asked a collegaue if she would take her children to the Hamilton Township Library to search for them. The game has since grown from there and Eschbach has helped about 500 Levittown area residents join in on the action and she hopes more will soon join.
“Well I kept seeing the posts [on Hamilton Rocks] and thought, I want to paint rocks and hide them,” Eschbach told LevittownNow.com. “I told my family about it and got the normal, Mom, don’t be crazy, ‘no one is going to pick up a painted rock and post that they found it’. Well, well, well, children and husband! Everyone is loving it! It’s very exciting!”
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The initiative, as noted by Durr in the Mercer Space, is to get families spending time together outside and away from technological devices.
Eschbach said that she took her son to Falls Township Park this week to hide rocks and they came across their very first “hidden” one. Eschbach hopes that as more in the community find out about the project, there will be even more rocks for children to find.
