CINCINNATI — Lance Winters discovered a love of LEGO sets during one of his many visits to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The toys offered him a chance to take his mind off his body's battle - and a chance to work on the motor skills in his arm.
An arm injury in soccer led doctors to discover cancer had spread from the Highlands High School senior's kidneys. It was rare - renal cell carcinoma.
"He was such a positive kid and he never complained, he was always so grateful no matter what he was going through," said Victoria Burnham, Lance's mom.
LEGO became a constant in his treatment and throughout his room. His Make-a-Wish trip was to the largest LEGO store in the country, at the Mall of America.
Burnham and Lance's dad, Mark Winters, have made two donations to Cincinnati Children's, totaling more than 700 LEGO sets, this summer.
Lance, then a junior at the University of Kentucky studying biology and creative writing, died in July. He was 22.
"When we were [at Children's], it was like for a moment you could walk in the door and a weight was lifted, you felt safe, you felt like your child was safe here," said Burnham.
Legos from Lance started as a extension of the support Winters and Burnham received from their fellow staff - and students and families - in the Oak Hills Local School District. Winters is principal at Springmyer Elementary. Burnham teaches at J.F. Dulles Elementary.
"When you lose a child, no one prepares for that, no one expects that," said Winters. "And all you can do is keep going day by day and trying to do good things."
The goal moving forward is to make a large donation each year, on Lance's birthday. But within a month or so of starting to take donations, Winters said he'd run out of room in the Springmyer library and his house. Because of social media word of mouth, packages have been showing up from across the country.
"It's just an amazing way for Lance's family to be able to carry on his memory and make a really beautiful legacy for him," said Abby Ann Williams, a child life specialist in the Cancer and Blood Disease Institute at Children's.
"Our kids here have to go through so many different hardships while they're here... and to be able to give them something that they enjoy is huge," she said.
As the Legos from Lance team was ending its second donation to Children's earlier this week, one mom approached Winters and Burcham and thanked them for their LEGO sets. Her child, who's been at Children's for more than one year, got one for a birthday gift and was thrilled.
"This whole situation would have been impossible if he were any other person other than who he was," Winters said of his son. "He was just a very brave, kind of unflappable, always comfortable with who he was."
If you'd like to donate to Legos from Lance, you can drop off sets at Springmyer Elementary.
