“Where’s Waldo?” Becomes Fun Game For Sick Kids

The view from the sixth floor of the pediatric care unit of the Memorial Children’s Hospital in South Bend, Ind., isn’t pretty. A construction work site is a view from its windows until Jason Haney decided to do something about it.

The construction foreman turned part sleuth, has been playing a game with the kids in the hospital that have been creating a lot of joy for the patients. He’s constructed an 8 ft. tall cutout of Where’s Waldo that he hides around the job site in hopes the kids at the hospital will find it. And, they do!

He hides the Where’s Waldo character all over the construction site in a game of hide-and-seek with the kids. Once the Waldo is found by the kids, Haney hides it all over again and the fun for the kids begins again.

Haney, 41, created the life-sized Waldo with the help of his daughter after he found out the sick kids at the hospital liked viewing a snowman from the window, that Haney and his team put on the job site last winter. The game provides a good distraction for the kids that are patients at the hospital undergoing treatments and appointments with doctors while they are there.

Once Hanley puts Waldo in its hiding spot, he watches the kids looking out the sixth-floor window, waiting patiently for them to find the character. Once he gets the signal from hospital staff that all the children have found Waldo, he moves it to another spot on the job site. He’s been placed on scaffolding and on top of a crane at the work site.

Hanley has a certain affinity for the kids at Memorial Children’s Hospital as his daughter was a patient at another children’s hospital for an extended period of time when she suffered a stroke at the young age of three. Knowing how his daughter felt when she was in the hospital, Haney wanted to do something for the kids of Memorial Children’s Hospital as a way to cheer them up.

At about 60 lb., Waldo is a little awkward to move around the job site, especially in the places that Haney often puts him, but Haney doesn’t seem to mind. It’s the look on the kids’ faces when they have found Waldo that makes his day.

Haney has even started a Facebook group page dedicated to Waldo, allowing the kids post photos of him once they have found him. Haney’s co-workers have gotten in on the fun posting fun messages to the kids such as; rhymes for them to read. The support for the Facebook group has gone international with visitors to the page from all over the world, posting kind words to Haney and the kids of Memorial Children’s Hospital.

While the fun has just begun with Waldo, Haney and his daughter are already on to their next project for the kids with a life-sized Minion. Soon the kids of Memorial Children’s Hospital will have another beloved character to be on the lookout for with Haney’s newly constructed Minion.