Teen is refurbishing old Lego sets to bring joy to underprivileged kids this Christmas

Many kids are fortunate enough to get new LEGO sets every holiday season or for their birthday. However, the sad truth is that Lego sets have grown to be massively pricey over the years. This means that most parents simply cannot afford to keep buying their kids new sets. As a result, a lot of kids miss out on all the fun that these toys have to offer.

Charlie Jeffers, a high school senior, grew up playing with Legos and fell in love with these toys. However, it soon dawned on him that many kids' families could not afford to buy Legos. Jeffers wished to bring some change with this and started an initiative called Pass the Bricks. On the official website, he states how playing with Lego helped him focus and relax while retaining productivity. His project essentially aims to help underprivileged children access these wonderful toys.

Jeffers worked with two dozen volunteers who all went about collecting used Lego pieces, cleaning them, and putting them into new sets with the help of design software, per Marin Independent Journal. They even put in the extra effort by putting assembly instructions for each set into the boxes and a photo of what the completed project should look like, adding a really professional touch to the product. He spoke about how the toys helped him, saying, "It's always been one of my favorite activities and something that has helped me learn math, art and engineering concepts."

Since most of the used Lego toys ended up in landfills, it made much more sense for underprivileged children to get them and have fun with them. Thanks to his team's creativity, they have been able to come up with really interesting and original Lego toy sets that almost seem brand new. Charlie's initiative is truly inspiring, allowing marginalized kids to play with Lego while also ensuring that older toys do not end up in landfills.

Lego has been making many efforts to be more inclusive. They revealed a few months back on their social media that they created Lego bricks that had braille alphabets and numbers to be accessible to blind children. While there were many intentions behind this step, it was primarily so that blind children could also play with Lego and learn what the toys had to offer. It was formulated in 2020, but it only became official with the recent announcement.

The toy company worked with many blind organizations and associations to test the new products to make sure they were the best. The bricks would basically have numbers and alphabets in braille that blind children could feel while they were playing. Interestingly, the toys are also meant for parents who often find it difficult to learn braille to communicate with their children. The new toy aims to help parents learn braille while also spending quality time with their children. It is truly nice to see such brands become more inclusive in multiple domains.