Building new homes one Lego at a time

Students host blitz fundraiser to aid Habitat for Humanity

Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Marianne Reid Gildea⁄Special to The Gazette Benjamin Lewis (left), 13, and Sam Hendel, 12, both of Potomac, are all grins about the Lego Blitz Build fundraiser they organized to benefit Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County.

Real homes, that is, under the auspices of Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County.

‘‘I’m into engineering,” said 13-year-old Lewis. ‘‘I wanted to find a way to help Habitat, and that’s what led me to the idea.”

The idea is ‘‘Lego Blitz Build,” a fundraiser at Montgomery mall in Bethesda on Oct. 22 that will benefit the nonprofit’s mission of building affordable housing for deserving low-income families.

It brings together 12,000 pieces of Lego and three-member teams of budding engineers ages 10 to 14 for an afternoon of competitive building.

‘‘We’ll compete for prizes for the best building and things like that,” Lewis said. ‘‘You pay $15 to [participate], so we’ll raise money and also awareness of Habitat. It’s good we can make a difference for people in need.”

Lewis pitched his idea over the phone to the Gaithersburg-based nonprofit in April.

‘‘I was researching [Habitat] online and found out you have to be 16 or older to volunteer on their construction sites,” Lewis said. ‘‘I still play occasionally with my Lego, a lot of people do. So I thought this was a good idea.”

So did the nonprofit, which since 1982 has built 19 affordable homes in the county, selling them at cost and with no-interest loans to low-income families. Each family purchasing a home invests an average of 350 hours of sweat-equity into the construction. Their mortgage payments go back into a revolving fund to build more homes.

Lewis’s project proposal simply arrived at just the right time, said Rosemary DiRita, Habitat director of volunteers.

‘‘We asked [Lewis] to come in and present his idea, actually a business plan and proposal, to our board,’ she said. ‘‘He was so professional about it.

‘‘We’d been thinking for some time about creating a dynamic youth program, so this event now officially launches our Youth Volunteer Program,” she said. ‘‘It could not have come at a better time.”

Aside from the kick-off fundraiser, the youth group will support adult volunteers by making lunches to be delivered to construction sites as well as doing fund raising and awareness projects throughout the year.

‘‘This is a great way to for kids to talk about the issues of affordable housing, to get them involved hands-on,” DiRita said. ‘‘We try to demystify the whole issue, to explain the houses aren’t just given away but that we partner with the families in building the houses.”

Lewis found willing recruits for the program among his fellow Cabin John students. Ten students, including a couple from Robert Frost Middle School, now meet monthly to hammer their plans for fund-raising and raising awareness of the nonprofit.

Currently, they are busy collecting the thousands of Lego pieces needed for the fundraiser. So far, an estimated 4,000 pieces have been collected.

‘‘I’ve donated a few,” said Sam Hendel, 12, of Potomac, a friend Lewis recruited to the program. ‘‘My brother is a sophomore in college and he still plays with Legos, so it’s kind of hard to give up.”

The youth group recently visited the nonprofit’s most ambitious project to date, the construction of 24 townhouses in Burtonsville. The field trip was an eye-opener for the students.

‘‘We sat on the [foundation] walls of the houses and learned about the families,” Hendel said. ‘‘It was inspirational.”