Photo by Jim Muchlinski Ghent area children Vivian Hennen, Hattie Hammer, and Beckett Buysse paint rocks at Jojo Schroepfer’s home-based day care center in Ghent. The rocks come in many sizes, shapes, colors and designs. After painted and coated with sealer, the rocks are placed throughout the community.

GHENT — Children at a Ghent day care center have a rock-solid way to beautify their community.

They paint moderately-sized rocks in a variety of colors, patterns and themes. Later they take the rocks with them on walks and place them at visible locations.

Day care provider Jojo Schroepfer said the rock art began in 2017 with a project to honor dads on Father’s Day. Each child made a hand print on a rock with a message such as “You Rock Dad.”

“I was trying to think of a good Father’s Day project, something we hadn’t done before,” Schroepfer said. “For Mother’s Day we usually do some type of flower theme. I thought rocks would appeal to the dads.”

The project went so well that she decided to offer the children a chance to paint rocks on a regular basis.

Before long some of the finished rocks began to appear throughout Ghent — at the city park, the local paved trail, the city’s rolle bolle courts and several business sites.

“We’ve become known for it,” Schroepfer said. “People like them and notice when we put out new ones. Some have even donated rocks and paint.”

The rock art is created in the summer months. The process includes a series of rock hunts where people look for a special rock. Several sponsors offer gift certificates for those who find them.

“We kept the rock hunts local,” Schroepfer said. “We get the word out by word of mouth. Parts of it coincide with our Belgian American Days celebration.”

She said she keeps the painting process simple, the kind of thing that pre-school children can enjoy. Sometimes children create multi-colored designs. In other cases they completely cover the rock in a single background color, on which she adds letters or other details.

She teaches them to avoid mixing wet colors since the result is almost always a brown rock surface. She applies a sealer to rocks before they’re placed outdoors, which enables the paint to withstand rain.

Schroepfer has served as a day care provider in Ghent for 41 years. She began a day care since she went to school for child development, and also as a way to stay home for her own children.

She now has several day care children whose parents attended her day care in the past. She’s always enjoyed the daily day care routine.

“It’s a fun job,”she said. “I’ve always enjoyed working with the kids. It’s what God intended for me to do.”