Hello Katherine,
There is such a tool, it is called ROIgrow but it is so new that I have not written the help for its usage.
Here is an example:
ROIgrow -i_fs YourSurface.asc -roi_nodes YourROINodes -lim LIM
will start from each node listed in YourROINodes and grow outward by a distance (along the mesh) equal to LIM. If the nodes in YourROINodes are isolated by more than LIM, the program will have the effect you wanted.
You will need to download the latest version of AFNI to have this program. I will document it soon so if you have any suggestions please let me know.
cheers,
Godot