How it came about:

When the SickKids Atrium was receiving its finishing touches in 1992, the construction firm faced a challenge. Streams of people continually poured through the doors at SickKids and needed to be directed around construction, or onto alternate pathways when a whole section was closed off (like Main Street, down the centre of the hospital, while it was being finished). 

How to show them where to go? A creative assistant came up with the answer. Lay acrylic footprints where you want people to go and have someone at the information desk instruct people to “follow the footprints.”

Messias Farias, now a project manager in Facilities Development at The Hospital for Sick Children, was then working for the contractor finishing the Atrium.  It was his task to lay the footprints and to remove and re-lay them as work zones moved. 

The idea worked. The footprints were easily seen and easily followed, and, thanks to Messias’ hard work, fairly easily moved for re-direction.

They were also a hit. Small children coming to the hospital would step their way along the footprints – it became a favourite game. When construction was finished, Mike Strofolino, then President and CEO of SickKids, asked that they be placed permanently down Main Street.

Messias was the man for the job.  He says he wanted to make the permanent prints spaced for a child and considered bringing in his little girl to space them.  But no, all the footprint moving – including the permanent installation – had to be done late at night, too late for a little one to be out of bed. So Messias improvised by imagining his daughter’s little steps and peeled and placed the vinyl where she might have trod, one print at a time.

How they are made to last:      

The footprints are a 3M product that was specially made for SickKids. They had to be especially tough to endure the heavy traffic. Today they cost $13.75 apiece.

They have, in their 17-year life (1992-2009), had to be replaced five times, and they have just been renewed yet again. The hospital’s Housekeeping team does the job – removing layers of wax and sealer, then the footprint and laying the new one. Then a fresh coat of sealer finishes the job.

The multicoloured footprints in Main Street are the first laid – later others in a plain orange were added leading the way to the food court in the Hill wing. 

The Footprints and Philanthropy

Besides bringing delight to our little visitors (and most staff admit they have traced the walk as well) the footprints continue to serve our philanthropy. For a series of telethons in the mid 90s, they helped volunteers find their way to their dinner!  The phone bank where the volunteers were working was some distance from where food was set up, so the instruction to volunteers was, “Follow the Footprints.”  

And last, they provided an opportunity to honour the generosity of one of SickKids leaders and best friends. Jim Pitblado, a long-serving board member at SickKids, had made numerous, generous gifts to SickKids, culminating in funding for the first research Chair at the SickKids Research Institute.  There was nothing in the hospital or Research Institute that acknowledged his long history of philanthropy and leadership. So, on February 23, 2004 – six years to the day after the inauguration of the Pitblado Chair in Cell Biology (February 23, 1998) – SickKids Foundation dedicated the Jim Pitblado Footpath in his honour.