Rocking around the community
On any given night, passerby will see groups scouring Chelsea with flashlights, searching for hiding places. The goal? To find painted rocks.
The new “phenomenon,” as Mayor Tony Picklesimer described it, is part of Chelsea Rocks — a craze that kicked off after sisters Maggie and Gracie Bradford returned home from a trip to the Tennessee mountains.
While in Tennessee, they came across a painted rock and asked a nearby store owner what it meant, and they explained that the rocks were a communitywide effort. People paint them, hide them and then families would get out and search for them.
“I’m not the artsiest person, but the people in the town we traveled to were just really kind, and I just wanted to spread that here, and painting rocks sounded like a good way to do it,” said Gracie Bradford, a student a Chelsea High School.
Their grandmother, Darla Pair, launched a Facebook page for the group, and it exploded from there.
“It did, like overnight, go crazy,” Pair said.
“The first week was kind of slow, but after that. … I haven’t seen a reaction like that in my community ever,” said Maggie Bradford.
The Facebook page now has close to 3,000 members and gets daily posts of newly painted and newly discovered rocks. And everyone in Chelsea is getting involved — kids, adults and even members of the Chelsea City Council.
“I’ll tell you what it’s done — it has united an entire community,” Pair said.
The first reaction they normally get, Maggie Bradford said, is skepticism. “They’re like, ‘You’re painting rocks?’,” she said. Those reactions change, however, once someone gets started on their own rocks.
“It’s addicting once you start,” said Ronnie Bradford, Maggie and Gracie’s mom. “We can’t stop.”
“I think [what draws people in] is they’re finally getting around the kitchen table and talking, without electronics,” Maggie Bradford said.
And they don’t want to. Painting rocks has become a family activity, the Bradfords said, and has brought them all closer together.
“When this first started, we were all around the kitchen table, including my husband, who wasn’t even painting,” said Ronnie Bradford. “He was on his laptop and called himself ‘Mr. DJ.’ But I don’t know if we’ve ever sat around the kitchen table as much as we have in the last month.”
It seems like that trend has spread to other families as well. In addition to painting together, everyone will get out and about to search for and hide rocks, and they’ll do it together.
“I hope that’s how it is in all the other families that are painting, too,” Gracie Bradford said. “It brings everybody together, gets us off our electronics and with the family. But it’s brought everybody together in the community.”
Local businesses are also getting involved. Some will paint their own rocks and offer a discount or gift basket to whoever discovers it; others will encourage people to hide rocks around their store. And Bedrock Landscape Supply has become a sort of “partner” with Chelsea Rocks, Pair said.
They have a pile of rocks that families can pick from, taking home a bag for just a few dollars. Seeing all the businesses involved is helping encourage a spirit of community, Pair said.
And while painting rocks can be a therapeutic activity, the reactions of people discovering the rocks are just as great.
“The smiles of kids with a rock, it’s just, that’s a very rewarding thing,” Pair said.
Even though Chelsea Rocks kicked off in the summer, Maggie Bradford said she thinks people will continue the trend after school kicks off. And it’s something that Ronnie Bradford said could be incorporated into community events.
For anyone who hasn’t tried it out, the Bradfords would encourage them to pick up a paint brush and a rock and go to town.
“They are probably really unaware of how happy it makes the other person, but I’ve seen it firsthand, and if they would just take the chance to get out there and see it for themselves, I know everybody would really appreciate it,” Gracie Bradford said.
For more information, search Chelsea “ROCKS,” Alabama on Facebook.