“Honey, you have to see this…”
I was looking out our front window at the young family of five taking a stroll who had stopped in front of our house to look at our rock garden. They had three young children with them, one in a stroller and two on small bikes. The two on bikes had dismounted and were picking through the rocks, holding them up to their parents, who I could see were reading each message. The best part…all had broad smiles and looks of wonderment on their faces.
We did, too. I put my arm around my wife as we looked on from our living room window. Our rock garden was just a small thing, we thought, as we smiled to ourselves, remembering that little things can make a big difference…
We hope all of you will join us in making a difference by participating in our 2021 Rock Painting Campaign. This is an enjoyable way for members of the community of all ages to participate in raising awareness about suicide prevention and mental health.
Participants paint and decorate rocks with positive, inspirational messages, which they then use to create special rock gardens, either in front of their homes or in their places of business, or else they place in locations throughout our community, such as along walkways, trails, or in parks for other community members to find. The key is that sharing these special rocks spreads hope and builds community around these positive, inspirational messages so that everyone knows that they are truly not alone in our fight to bring suicide and mental health awareness out of the dark.
Project 99 supports all of our community members who would like to participate. You can use your own materials or we can send you a kit to help you create and decorate your own rocks. We will also be hosting special events that incorporate using the rocks to spread positive messages. One includes our signature event where we first started integrating the use of our painted rocks: our Lights for Life 5K. The popularity of the rocks at this inspired us to expand to create the Suicide Prevention Rock Garden Campaign. We hope to see homes, businesses and other organizations join us in adding their gardens to help us spread awareness and share these positive messages of hope. Finally, we are participating, in partnership with the Joshua York Legacy Foundation, in an attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest display of painted rocks! You can read much more about all of these opportunities on our Rock Campaign page by clicking the link HERE.
If you would like to help us in our efforts, check Ways You Can Help Flier, which you view below:
Please share pictures of your efforts with us here at Project 99 by posting on our social media or emailing to project99org@gmail.com.
And of course, we are always looking for volunteers to help us at our painting and distribution events. If you’d like to help out in any way, please complete our Volunteer Form.
