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For The Washington Post

Virginia Oliver

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Crockett Jeffers

Charlie Jeffers has been a Lego fan since he was 4, and over the years, he has collected hundreds of Lego bricks.

“My bedroom is wall-to-wall Legos on all the shelves,” said Jeffers, 17, a senior at Redwood High School in Marin County, Calif. “It’s been such a big part of my life.”

A few years ago, he noticed his friends started tossing away their old Lego collections.

“They just go into a landfill,” he said.

“Legos are expensive,” he said. “A lot of people don’t get access to them.”

He began collecting unwanted Lego parts from his friends and people in his neighborhood. He wrote on community forums, hung fliers and went door to door telling people about his idea. Donations of old Lego sets poured in.

“The ball got rolling from there, and it’s been getting bigger since,” Jeffers said.

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He named his project <a href="https://www.passthebricks.org/" target=_blank>Pass the Bricks</a>, and he has recruited 25 volunteers who help collect the sets. They also sanitize, sort, pack and distribute them.

People who are willing to part with their old bricks drop them off directly at Jeffers’s front door, or ship them to him, depending on where they live.

Because most sets are missing pieces, he and the volunteers look at what they have and get creative: They think up a Lego scene that contains roughly 20 to 60 pieces, though some are larger. Examples include a blind date, a flower vendor and a family photo shoot.

Then, they give the sets to various nonprofit organizations that support children.

Charlie Jeffers

Since Jeffers started the project in 2020, he and the volunteers have created and donated more than 3,000 Lego sets.

“We’re trying to make them really fun,” said Jeffers, adding that his sets are usually abstract and unique. For instance, he created one 56-piece set called “Chewbacca’s Housewarming Party” — a nod to the Star Wars character — and a 94-piece set called “Iron Man Goes to the Car Wash.”

Pass the Bricks tries to solve two problems at once: preventing thousands of tiny plastic parts from ending up in landfills, and giving more children a chance to play with Legos.

Jeffers said that as a child, Lego was as much an educational tool as it was a fun toy for him. It made him curious about building and engineering concepts, and encouraged him to tap into his artistic side.

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“The ability to either follow instructions and make something amazing, or to go completely out of your imagination and make something from there, it creates these really awesome results,” he said.

Lego, though, is a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/12/13/167055503/why-legos-are-so-expensive-and-so-popular" target="_blank">pricey toy,</a> making it unaffordable for some families. Other people have started Lego-related donation projects over the years, including <a href="https://www.littlebrickscharity.org/" target="_blank">Little Bricks Charity,</a> a nonprofit created by Russell Cassevah, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/14/lego-russell-cassevah-little-bricks/" target="_blank">became famous for walking barefoot on Legos.</a> And the Lego company <a href="https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/help/brick_facts/recycling-lego-pieces-warehouse-recycling-kA009000001dblqCAA?locale=en-us" target="_blank">collects used bricks</a> (free shipping), which it then donates or repurposes.

Jeffers has grown his organization beyond California. He now has volunteers in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Michigan and Florida who collect Lego parts, create sets and distribute them in their own communities to charities for children.

Using donations from friends and family, as well as his own contributions from his job at a gym, Jeffers orders simple cardboard gift boxes online for about 20 cents each to package the sets. He encourages volunteers to use whatever packaging is affordable and easily accessible to them.

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Volunteers write out instructions for how to build each set, and they include a photo of the finished product in the package before dropping the sets off at local organizations. While most of the sets are delivered by hand, Jeffers has paid to ship them in a few cases.

He said he’ll continue Pass the Bricks when he goes to college next year.

Jeffers has given sets to <a href="https://bgca.org/" target=_blank>Boys &amp; Girls Clubs of America,</a> <a href="https://familyhouseinc.org/" target=_blank>Family House</a>, <a href="https://www.fredfinch.org/" target=_blank>Fred Finch Youth &amp; Family Services</a>, Goodwill, <a href="https://www.marinfostercare.org/" target=_blank>Marin Foster Care Association</a> and the <a href="https://bayareacrisisnursery.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA4Y-sBhC6ARIsAGXF1g7di1FS44e1sPa26UwQPaPiljuxPHQhl--V2f3IZGPd2SanylGG4k8aAiVDEALw_wcB" target=_blank>Bay Area Crisis Nursery</a>, among other organizations. He has also given Lego sets directly to children at local schools.

“The Lego sets were a great complement to our impactful STEM programming,” said Jamin McVeigh, senior vice president of development at Boys &amp; Girls Clubs of San Francisco. “We appreciate the opportunity to share them with the youth and families we serve.”

Jeffers said he hopes to get Lego sets into as many hands as possible.

“I was so lucky to have access to a toy like that,” he said. “I want to give other kids the same opportunity.”

McGill University, BA

Columbia University, MS in journalism 

Sydney Page is a staff reporter who writes for The Washington Post’s Inspired Life section, a collection of stories about humanity. She has been a contributor to The Post since 2018.

Sydney Page

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Charlie Jeffers gives Legos a second life with Pass the Bricks 

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