Superhero Day at Kingston General Hospital is all about bringing joy to children coping with injury or illness in a setting away from the comfort of their family and home.
Superhero Day is about putting that aside and letting kids be kids.
“So that they can have a little bit more excitement, a little bit more interaction and a little bit more happiness during this hard time,” says Erika Kooi, program manager at KGH.
This year, Batman, Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, Star-Lord and the Mandalorian made the multi-storey descent.
Superhero Day has been an eight-year collaboration between KGH and Elite Window Cleaning.
Not only is it a big day with the children in hospital, it’s pretty popular with the heroes for a day as well.
“I want to be this character,” says Chris Stones, founder of Elite Window Cleaning.
“This year, we introduced the Mandalorian because a bunch of kids were like ‘We’ve got to have Mando in the scene’, so he’s up there this year. The arm-twisting is who gets to be who.”
A crowd of parents and children also gathered outside the hospital to meet the stars of comic books, TV shows and movies.
Once that was done, the heroes went off for a day full of adventures with the children in hospital.
“We actually give them superhero kits,” says Kooi.
“In the morning and the day before they can start prepping and they can make pictures, they can make signs for the superheroes so they can show them through the windows. Once the drops are done, the superheroes come inside and they meet the kids. We actually have some activities some games and stuff, face painting going on.”
For the children in hospital, Superhero Day may be their favourite form of health care.