Dozens of children in Flagler County painted rocks Sunday to get their minds off of dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.

  • Rock painting event hosted by Flagler Beach Police
  • Way for children to enjoy themselves post-Irma
  • Police department plans to hold another event

With each stroke of the paint brush, Kaitlyn Smith's children found rock painting to be therapeutic.

"I talked them about painting rocks and they were dressed and they were ready before I even got done explaining it," Smith said.

Irma damaged the family’s backyard, the one place where they used to go for fun. Smith's son has a heart condition so she said playing outside allows him to break free.

"We've been doing a lot of indoor activities or we go to my mom's house to get them out since they're not able to play in their backyard," Smith said.

Flagler Beach Police officers, who hosted the event, said they wanted to do something for the community after dealing with two hurricanes in less than a year.

"This is actually something fun that's not focused on the tragedy that we've had hit us,” said Smith. “Paint a picture, write their name do whatever they want.”

Officers filled containers with rocks and set up the paint. More than 50 kids participated in the event. The officers also allowed the children to paint on one of their police cars.

"The flooding and the kids just being out of sorts and losing so much we figured we open up the doors and bring some paint let the kids do something fun for a little bit it'll get their minds off of all of that," said Dee Ramirez , Flagler Beach Police chief administrative assistant.

"She has paint on her nose, on her clothes,” Smith said. “It doesn't matter, they're happy. The thing is they're kids, and it's for mommy and daddy to figure out everything that's going on with the hurricane with the loss of food and everything that we're dealing with. They don't need to worry about that."

The Flagler Beach Police Department said this won't be the last time it’ll hold this event.

"We just want them to know that everything is going to be ok everything is going back to normal and if you need us we're here," Ramirez said.