At home in Toronto, I watched with increasing concern as word of COVID-19 started to spread.  By March 2020, my alarm bells rang.  I started paying closer attention to what we were being told to do and frequent hand washing with soap and water, was always the first thing mentioned.  

While I’ve always been a big fan of hand washing, I realized that I needed to be doing it longer. To keep my sinking spirits up, I created a little four-line song about hand washing to the tune of Row, row, row your boat.  I sang that twice, got my 20-seconds of palm washing in and thought I was good to go.  At that time it was just the second verse of Merrily’s song. 

I shared it with people close to me as I reached out to let them know I was doing OK and I hoped they were too.  My little verse got the thumbs-up and made me think it might make a fun animated video.   The fact that I have no animation or video experience didn’t stop me.  I contacted Craig Davis of Producers Post in London, Ontario.  Over the last three decades, anytime I’ve ever needed a professional video, I’ve called on Craig.  I knew he would let me know if this was a viable idea.  He not only thought it was a fun idea, he reached out to some of his contacts in the animation world.   

In the meantime, he told me, animators need references for creating their illustrations. And with that, he sent me links to several hand washing videos. The one from the WHO seemed to be the definitive version that the others were based on.  Watching it, my spirits plummeted and I almost gave up on my idea.  I just couldn’t imagine how all those movements would fit into a fun little video.      

But the idea wouldn’t let me go.  Suddenly the ‘animated character’ in my video became Merrily Washing and the rest, as they say, is history.  I lost track of how many times I’ve watched the WHO video in my attempt to make hand washing fun. By adding a couple more verses to the song and attracting a team of talented people to the project, the video and this website became a reality in record time.  

My only goal in doing this is to share what I’ve learned about hand washing. I’ve always found that when learning something new is fun, it lightens my spirit and has the best chance of creating lasting change for me.  When it comes to hand washing, this is critical.  Every day we’re still hearing that frequent hand washing with soap and water is an important part of reducing the spread of COVID-19.   Once this devastating pandemic is behind us, I firmly believe that thorough hand washing should become one of our ‘new-normals’.  It’s already one of mine. Please watch the video, check-out the How To section and share this as widely as possible.  

Please ‘Merrily’ wash and do keep well!