The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of many, but for one Gainesville resident, that disruption created an opportunity to lift community spirits.
Amber Wangemann, a Gainesville resident who teaches piano lessons, has been hiding painted rocks for the public to find in the Hall County region since the summer of 2020 after losing about half of her income due to the pandemic.
Wangemann said the idea to paint and hide rocks in the region first came to her after drawing art with chalk on Gainesville’s Downtown Square with young people from her church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
“One of the guys kind of got a little bored and he started walking around the square, and he started picking up these little somethings … he came back to us and showed us these rocks that had been painted and said ‘Come by our business and get a little treat,’” Wangemann said.
Wangemann said a local business had placed the rocks downtown, and anyone who found one and brought it to the business would receive a popsicle as a gift.
Finding this idea interesting, Wangemann decided that she wanted to hide and paint rocks on a community-wide basis.
However, instead of providing popsicles to people who find painted rocks, Wangemann wanted to give the gift of hope. The rocks have the phone numbers of young people from Wangemann’s church written on the back, as well as the phone number of Wangemann’s father, Gainesville City Councilman George Wangemann.
“I … want people to know that if they simply want to talk to someone, because they might be lonely sitting at home all day, that these young people are here for them,” Amber Wangemann said on the phone numbers.
Aside from taking the time to speak with people who find rocks, George Wangemann also creates gift bags for those that find rocks, which contain City of Gainesville memorabilia and free passes to the Francis Meadows Aquatic Center in Gainesville.
Amber Wangemann said her focus for hiding the painted rocks is Gainesville, however, she has also hidden some in Oakwood, Flowery Branch and Lula.
Originally, Amber Wangemann was only planning to paint and hide rocks in the community during the summer of 2020, but after getting so many calls from people who had found a rock, she changed her mind.
“There’s one guy with a son, that they actually go out every weekend to try to find these rocks … and he found a rock that had my dad’s number on it and he said, ‘I hope that you never stop doing these rocks,’ so after I heard that I was like, well, I’ll try not to stop,” Amber Wangemann said.
