A stone painted by the residents of the Maria Boodschap residential care center in Niel (Antwerp Province) has ended on the other side of the Atlantic. Some festivalgoers took the stone back home with them to California after a man from Boom that provided them with accommodation had given it to them.
Tomorrowland festivalgoers take care home residents’ painted stone with them to California
Published:
The residents of the residential care home leave painted stones lying around in their local area hoping that passers-by will pick them up and take them away with them.
For several years now Dietrich Bruckmann has offered accommodation to Tomorrowland festivalgoers at his home in Boom. This year’s visitors were from the US state of California. During a walk with the dog, Dietrich had found a painted stone. On the back of the stone he saw that it was part of a project by the Maria Boodschap residential care centre in nearby Niel.
9,000 kilometres away
Ellen Peersmans is a care supervisor at the centre. She told VRT News that "Our residents paint the stones and they are then left behind at different places when we go for a walk with the residents or when they have to go to Antwerp University Hospital to visit a doctor". The idea is that the painted stones are picked up and taken away and end up somewhere else. Now for the first time one of the stones has ended up 9,000 kilmetres away on the west coast of America.
Those that find one of the stones are encouraged to post a photo on the ‘Klein Geluk’ Facebook page and this is just what Dietrich's Bruckmann’s American guests have done. "I was very pleasantly surprised when I received the news that one of the stones is now in California. Colleagues and the management also noticed. I immediately informed the residents. Wow, one of our stones in California", Ellen Peersmans told VRT News.
The residents are very happy with the news. Resident Liliane Naegels told VRT News that "I think it's fantastic, I'm really happy. We had put in so much time and effort and never got a response. Now we have and it is from so far away”