Young patients at the Memorial Children’s Hospital in South Bend, Ind. have found inspiration outside their windows. Each day, Jason Haney, a labour foreman with J.J. White Inc., hides an eight-foot-tall plywood replica of Waldo, of the children’s book series Where’s Waldo?, somewhere on the construction site of a hospital expansion project.
Shortly after, kids report they’ve found Waldo, identifying his location on a dedicated Facebook page.
The general contractor is adding three storeys to the existing hospital building next door as part of a US$50-million project to create a new children’s hospital facility. Construction began in July 2015.
"In the winter we built a snowman facing the existing pediatric unit," says Haney. "We screwed some pieces of OSB (board) together for arms, added a tie wire smile and dressed it in a hard hat and threw a construction vest on him and the kids loved it. My foreman had a grandson who was in the pediatric unit and he said his daughter told him that the snowman was a huge hit with the kids. That felt good."
A tough act to follow, the construction crew attempted to do just that. Haney says he originally thought of populating the construction site with characters from the children’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are.
"Our electrician suggested Waldo and that’s what we agreed on," says Haney.
With the assistance of his daughter Taylor, Haney crafted Waldo from a sheet of painted plywood and then brought him to work. Young patients at the hospital play video bingo, including a construction-themed version, allowing them to participate in their rooms. Haney asked the hospital if he could use the video system to ask the kids to look out their window to find Waldo.
The response was overwhelming, says Steve Alwine, a project manager for J.J. White.
"When we moved him around, the kids at the hospital would call our offices or the hospital management office to tell them they saw him and ask us to move him," he says. "Eventually we were receiving calls from hospital staff that it was time to move him. Jason didn’t expect this type of reaction. He’ll go out of his way for almost everyone and he has a soft spot for kids and just wanted to do something to make them smile and take their minds off their medical treatments. We never thought it would get this big."
Haney’s wife Heather set up a Facebook page to report Waldo’s new location, either through a post or a photo. Haney, sometimes assisted by fellow construction workers, would follow up by shifting Waldo to a new location.
"Jason would move Waldo on lunch hours and even on weekends," says Alwine. "Waldo has been spotted everywhere inside the building, on the scaffolding and even on top of the tower crane. The emergency department is located at the bottom of the construction site and one of the cops who came in hit him with his spotlight in the middle of the night and posted a photo on the Facebook page with the caption, ‘I see you Waldo.’"
Haney says his employer has been more than accommodating as he responds to media interest from across the globe.
"The company is here to do construction, but obviously Jason has gone above and beyond anything we expected," says Heidi Prescott, media relations specialist with Beacon Health System, the parent organization of the hospital.
"This is a massive construction project going on in front of the eyes of young patients, so to involve them in the construction process is such a cool, cool thing. If Jason is carrying Waldo through the hospital, even staff members get excited and he has to put him down so they can have their pictures taken with him."
Haney says he’s currently working on adding some construction-themed Minions (much easier to move and hide) to maintain the enthusiasm of the young audience.
The hospital project is heading for a February 2017 completion date, but Waldo’s future has been assured.
"When we’re done here, we want to have the crew sign the back of Waldo, clean him up, seal him with urethane and donate him to the new children’s hospital," says Haney. "Hopefully the hospital will continue to find ways to use him to play games with the kids."
Each day Jason Haney, a foreman with J.J. White Inc., hides an eight-foot-tall plywood replica of Waldo of Where’s Waldo? fame somewhere on the construction site of an expansion project at the Memorial Children’s Hospital in South Bend, Ind. for children to find and report on a dedicated Facebook page.
Photo: Heidi Prescott/Beacon Health System"
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