A New Bedford woman is hoping to spread a little kindness right in her own front yard.
Social worker Erika Silva started a kindness rock garden on Cornell Street in New Bedford this past summer. She says the garden was inspired by her own mental health struggles.
"I have some mental health difficulties and recently they got worse. I took a medical leave from work and the first two weeks were difficult. I didn't know what to do," Silva explained.
Silva decided to pick up a hobby to take her mind off of things.
"I started painting rocks," she said. "You get the rocks, you wash them, you prep them and then you paint them. I have a whole Pinterest board of rock garden sayings."
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Each rock is marked with a unique message to spread kindness and empathy. Some of them read, "A garden is a friend you can visit anytime" and "Be the person your dog thinks you are."
Silva put the rocks on display in her front yard and within the first 24 hours, people started taking them.
"I thought, 'if I put those rocks out there maybe someone will see it who needed it that day', kind of like me. All of the phrases that I put on are special to me and surrounded around mental health," she explained.
She said she's painted almost 200 rocks so far, which are inspiring complete strangers.
"I received a card from my neighbor, who I don't know. The card was so sweet. She complimented me on how I'm bringing positivity and kindness to the neighborhood and how I brought a smile to her face and that I'm impacting more people than I know," Silva said.
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While her words are healing for others, she says it's also been healing for herself.
"It helps level my thoughts so that they're not so in the front of my brain and affecting me at that time. I'm kind of in one spot and just healing."
Silva plans to expand the kindness rock garden throughout her yard and says she'll continue painting inspirational rocks as long as people keep taking them.