Indiana – A construction foreperson hides a life-size cutout of Where’s Waldo on his construction site every day, so children in the hospital nearby can have a distraction. Jason Haney is working on a $50 million expansion at Memorial Children’s Hospital in South Bend, Indiana.

Last winter, his coworkers and he built a snowman dressed in a hard hat and reflector that became the delight of the children and the hospital staff. Afterward, Haney got the idea of placing a blow-up Sponge Bob Square Pants and a blow-up snowman in the construction site so the children could see them. Then, according to Haney, a co-worker approached him and asked if it wouldn’t be funny to put a Waldo up there.

Haney got inspired and decided to make a life-size cutout Waldo (Wally outside the US), with a 4-by-8 sheet of plywood. Image Credit: ABC News
Haney got inspired and decided to make a life-size cutout Waldo (Wally outside the US), with a 4-by-8 sheet of plywood. Image Credit: ABC News

In April, he hid it in the construction site for the first time for the children to finding it and soon became a hit. He admits the eight-foot tall figure is “a pain in the butt” to carry and move around, but it’s all worth it for the kids’ amusement.

Haney knows what it’s like to be a children patient when his daughter was still in the uterus she had a stroke. At the age of three, and after a CAT scan, doctors found out she had brain damage, and told her parents that she wouldn’t learn past the third-grade level, “it just devastated us” said Haney.

However, fifteen years later the now teenager has graduated with honors and is going to be starting Ball State next year.

“Is so the kids could take their mind off what they’re doing — so they could get out of their room and walk over to the playroom and have a little bit fun […] I’m just glad that they’re enjoying it and it’s helping. I’m glad to have the opportunity to do it,” said Haney when asked why he did it.

Once the children find Waldo, Haney gets notified, and he moves the figure to another hiding spot

The game has become so popular that Haney set up a Facebook group so people could share their Waldo pictures once they found it. Hospital staffer Heidi Prescott says the children run to the windows to try and pinpoint the character.

“On a daily basis, our pediatric patients, they look forward to going to the windows in their playrooms in their unit to try to figure out “Where’s Waldo?” claims Prescott.

Even though the kids find Waldo after a few minutes, “it brightens their day.” The hospital’s expansion is supposed to be over next March, so Haney and his coworkers have decided to sign their Waldo cut-out and gave it to the children as a present. In the meantime, Haney is building four Minion to add to the game, since they will be easier to carry.

Source: Huffington Post