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On Thursday, April 16, those who were arriving for work at UVA Health were greeted by cheers and applause. In the early morning hours, construction workers hung a banner on the University Hospital expansion that read “THANK YOU Health Care Heroes!” and lined Lee Street to express their gratitude to team members for their dedication during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The “simple act of kindness,” as he describes it, was the idea of Chris Hoy, Senior Supervisory Construction Administration Manager. For the past six years, the University Hospital Expansion Project Team (Facilities Management, contractor Skanska, and subcontractors) have worked alongside the healthcare team to build the expansion.

“We see and feel the stress,” Hoy said. “We know that the healthcare workers are there for us, and we want them to know that we are there for them.”

When you give, you get. The construction team is no exception, themselves feeling rewarded as much as it boosted the spirits of those doing patient care.

“The workers were enthusiastic, felt a sense of doing good, and didn’t want to go back to work,” Hoy said. “Someone asked me if they could do this every day. There is no better feeling than serving others.”

Check out photos from the heart-warming surprise below.