Seafarers who come ashore at Port Everglades this December will have a little something new in the boxes that the Fort Lauderdale Seafarers' House gives out each Christmas.
Last weekend, more than a dozen volunteers from the house, the Grind Kindness Rocks Project and the Church by the Sea met at a coffee shop to paint stones with pictures and messages for inclusion in shoeboxes that the house distributes to mariners.
"We will be able to add these beautifully painted stones to serve as a constant remainder to these hard-working seafarers that people care about them," Seafarers' House executive director Lesley Warrick said.
The Seafarers' House fills, wraps and distributes nearly 2,000 shoeboxes containing combs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, razors, shaving cream, socks and other toiletries to the crews that come to the Florida port each winter.
The painted stones scheme is part of a larger national movement called the Kindness Rocks Project, with various local groups formed across the US.
In Fort Lauderdale, the national group has a local chapter called Broward County Rocks. One member, Roxanne Haubirch, nicknamed Rocky, started up another group, the Grind Kindness Rocks Project, with the meeting place and supplies provided by local coffee shop Grind Coffee Project.
The coffee shop group was originally started to paint stones for the nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed in a shooting earlier this year.
The group later added Seafarers' House to their list of recipients after Warrick contacted Haubirch via social media.
"Roxanne was quick to embrace the idea," Warrick said. "We met for lunch and, in no time, we were able to put this effort together."
