Free colouring pages help kids honour 'superhero' front-line workers

Colouring pages honour COVID-19 front-line workers A local company has created a collection of free, downloadable colouring pages featuring “superhero” essential workers.

TORONTO — A local company has created a collection of free, downloadable colouring pages featuring “superhero” essential workers.

“We wanted to acknowledge the positive impact that many frontline workers are having in this pandemic,” says Andrea Wong, a producer at Makers. “And not just the doctors and nurses, who are amazing, but also the garbage collectors, grocery store workers, the mail carriers.”

Makers created the collection of colouring pages called “Super Essential Workers.” The images feature front-line workers of all kinds in superhero action portraits for kids or adults.

“The goal really was to spread joy,” Wong said. “To offer an additional activity to parents and grandparents for kids who may not be returning to school.”

The illustrations were done by more than 20 artists from around the world, who donated their time and talents to the project.

Six-year-old Leela Ajwani said she did some colouring with her dad and already has a favourite page to colour.

“The one with the face with the glasses that have flowers on it, with the flowers around it,” she told CTV News Toronto.

“She’s probably done the same image like 10 times,” her father Sumit Ajwani adds. “[Leela] just fell in love with that drawing instantly, this one with the flowers, and she just wanted to colour it over and over again.”

Ajwani says the colouring pages have not only kept his kids busy, but have led to meaningful discussions.

“It sort of opened a conversation about what was going on and how we could all help and why we were at home,” he tells CTV News Toronto. “It was a great way to talk about the pandemic, but also talk about the people doing the real work out there and keeping us all safe.”

The pages are free to download, but Makers hopes anyone downloading them considers making a donation to the Kids Help Phone.

“A lot of kids right now, are very confused in these times, and Kids Help Phone is getting more calls and having more connections than ever before because of this,” Wong said. “So for us, it was really important to support those who area supporting kids.”

Leela said she’ll continue to colour her favourite page over and over again. She also had this message to share with CTV News for the frontline workers in her life:

“Thank you for keeping us safe.”