The Drawing Hope Project is ‘drawing’ big attention

the drawing hope project

A Wallaceburg native is gathering some big attention across North America for an inspirational project he has created for children.

Shawn Van Daele, a WDSS grad, is working on a project called Drawing Hope: A Magical Story in Photographs through his photography and graphic design business. He gathers drawings from children born or living with health conditions, and uses them as inspiration to create characters starring themselves in a “magical photograph.”

Van Daele has gotten some amazing exposure for his project recently, appearing online in stories by:

Van Daele is also heading to Las Vegas, Nevada to work with six families at the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation, which will be documented and aired by ABC World News with Diane Sawyer.

Also, the Today Show is flying a crew in to see him in order to document his project.

While all the United States media are just discovering Shawn and The Drawing Hope project right now, we went back in our archives to uncover an interview we did with Shawn back in 2012.

Van Daele said he believes both children and adults alike will draw some inspiration and courage from the project.

“It’s totally taken on a life of its own and people have taken an ownership over the project,” he said. “The whole thing is kind of bigger than me. It has a life of its own now. It’s really grown into a family.. and that’s a really cool thing as well. All these families I’ve met with now, I’m making life time friends… I don’t have any children of my own, but I feel like I do now.”

We’ve chatted with Shawn and are working on setting up another interview with him to get more of an update.

Check out the project on Facebook or visit drawinghope.ca.

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