A group of New York construction workers are using the steel beams at a construction site to send messages of encouragement and hope to the children in the old hospital.

Workers building a new children’s hospital across the street from New York’s Stony Brook Hospital placed a spray painted note of encouragement to a child named Jesse on a steel beam that was located outside the child’s window.  Jesse is the son of one of the workers on the new building.

After Jesse responded by hanging his own “thank you” note in the window of his room, the workers then painted messages to the other children in the pediatric rooms across from their construction site.

“It’s remarkably touching,” Dr. Ken Kaushansky, dean of Stony Brook University School of Medicine, told TODAY.com.

Mark Swanson of the LiRo Group, a Long Island construction company managing the hospital construction, said he had no idea the workers were going to write the messages and that it was a pleasant surprise.

“People of course have preconceived notions that construction workers are just hard-nosed and a bunch of tough guys,” Swanson added. “But I think this goes to show they’re really just a bunch of softies. Especially when it comes to sick children.”