WAKE COUNTY, N.C. — While many high school students are vacationing for summer break, one teenager in Cary is working on his nonprofit.

What You Need To Know

  • Anderson Colantouni, 17, is sharing his love of Legos with others through his nonprofit, Kids Need Bricks

  • He donates Legos to foster homes, children's centers, orphanages and nonprofits in the Raleigh area

  • His first large donation went to a Raleigh nonprofit, Children's Flight of Hope

Anderson Colantouni is sharing his love of Legos with​ children all over the Raleigh area.

The Cary Academy student started reselling his Legos at local flea markets. But when those were forced to close during the pandemic, he started his nonprofit Kids Need Bricks.

Now he donates Legos to foster homes, children's centers, orphanages and nonprofits.

"I always loved the design, the building, the idea of creating something from nothing," Colantouni​ said. "And when you just have a bin of pieces, the opportunities are almost endless."

His first large donation is going to the Raleigh nonprofit Children's Flight of Hope. It provides flights to specialized medical care for kids. And medical care is a topic close to Colantouni's heart.

His dad, Michael, is partially paralyzed from a motorcycle accident that damaged his spinal cord. He now mostly uses a wheelchair to get around.

"Living with my father I have always known that there are struggles that he has to go through and endure," Anderson Colantouni said. "Knowing that he is a full-grown adult ... and he still has to take care of me, I can't imagine what it's like for families having to deal with children that are 6 or 7 years old," he said.

Colantouni hopes to ease some of those struggles, and it's why he donated 50 sets of Legos to Children's Flight of Hope.

The delivery should help fill care packages for the nonprofit for at least a year so kids can bring the toys with them to their doctors visits all across the country.

Children's Flight of Hope serves kids nationally and internationally out of its headquarters in Raleigh and provides flights to children up to age 18.

"Imagine being a parent of a sick child and knowing that their specialized care across the country or out of reach in your own community and having the cost of air travel, which is currently rising significantly, be the barrier to achieving and reaching that care," said Children's Flight of Hope President and CEO Pat Nelli. "It's hard to imagine. So we try to ease that emotional, medical and financial burden for families."