West Islip kindergartner Finley Mulholland sets 'rocks of hope' at Good Samaritan University Hospital

A West Islip 5-year-old wants to create a little more brightness for patients at Good Samaritan University Hospital with a garden of rocks painted with positive images and messages.

Kindergartner Finley Mulholland became interested in "kindness rocks" after discovering a garden of inspirational stones at a Bay Shore park with his family and asked his mother if he could create a similar garden at Good Samaritan, where he and his younger brother were born.

His mother, Jill Mulholland, 41, said she called the hospital in January with the idea and hospital representatives said "they were 100% in."

On May 25, as the hospital unveiled the garden at the hospital near his home, Finley and his family and friends celebrated by placing dozens of rocks they painted at the site.

When people see it, Finley said, “if they’re sick, maybe it will make them feel better.”

Nearly 100 colorfully painted rocks displaying a range of images and phrases are scattered across reddish gravel in a well-manicured outdoor area near the Baxter Main Entrance of the hospital. One is painted green with a candy cane; another says "believe," with a colorful dotted pattern surrounding the word. 

The idea is to "take a rock that brings you joy or comfort, and leave a rock for someone else to continue the ripple effect of positivity and kindness," Mulholland said.

A sign near the garden describes that goal, reading: "Kindness Rocks: Pick one, plant one, watch kindness grow."

Hospital staff cleared the space and helped develop the area for the garden with a new flagpole, along with a bench and gravel covering the ground where the garden was placed, said Kelly Albanese Scherer, executive director of the Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation, which hosts fundraisers to support the hospital. 

“These special touches — they mean so much more than I think people realize to our patients and to our visitors, but also to our employees,” Scherer said of the painted stones. 

On Thursday, a visitor outside the Baxter entrance waiting for his mother in surgery said he'd noticed the rocks but otherwise declined to comment. 

Someone else walking past the garden said, "We certainly need more kindness in the world."

Mulholland said the family has sought out similar gardens around Long Island with the help of a Facebook group that was linked to the first they found in Bay Shore.

Finley "took a big interest in it, so much so that he asked Santa for 10 rocks for Christmas,” Mulholland said. 

Lisa Palermo of West Islip started a similar Facebook page, the Long Island Kindness Rocks Project, in 2019 to share photos of kindness rocks from across Long Island after she started painting and distributing the stones herself. 

“To have your own personal message for uplifting encouragement just kind of hits people,” she said. “You get them at the right moment, and it could change their day, it could change their life.”

There are multiple Long Island Facebook pages and groups themed around kindness rocks, and other Long Island organizations, such as Harborsfield Public Library in Greenlawn, have started their own kindness rock initiatives. 

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com@brianne_ledda

Brianne Ledda covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.