Bereaved mother puts smiles on cancer patients’ faces with Lego sets

A bereaved mother has been spreading smiles across the country by giving over 700 Lego sets to people with cancer following the death of her son from complications linked with a brain tumour.

Jane Carpenter’s son James was diagnosed with a glioma, a type of primary tumour that starts in the glial cells of the brain or spinal cord, in 2013 and died on September 2 2022, at the age of 22, after battling with problems associated with the cancer.

The 54-year-old said her son was “fun-loving” and “intelligent”, with a lust for life and hopes of becoming an architect, despite the condition affecting his memory and speech among other things.

James was a Lego enthusiast (Jane Carpenter/PA)

Lego was also a large part of his life and he regularly created brick models alongside his father John, 62.

His funeral took place on October 14 2022 and his coffin was wrapped with Lego and had a Union flag design.

“Him and John would have their own sort of Lego language and they would sit and sort the pieces into piles,” Mrs Carpenter, who is a special educational needs (SEN) teaching assistant at a local school in Wallington, in south London, told the PA news agency.

“Lego was a huge distraction from his tumour journey.”

James’s coffin which was wrapped in Lego (Jane Carpenter/PA)

Within a week of her son’s passing, she put out an appeal on Facebook asking if anyone would be willing to donate a box of Lego she could give to children with cancer in her son’s memory.

“We got boxes and boxes of Lego and my daughter said it felt like Christmas morning,” she added.

To date, she has provided 764 Lego sets – otherwise known as James’s box of smiles – to different hospitals and organisations across the country, including The Wight Brainy Bunch, which provides emotional support and financial assistance to Isle of Wight families affected by brain tumours.

(from left to right) Mrs Carpenter’s daughter Charlotte Carpenter, 22, with Jane, 54, and John Carpenter, 62 (Jane Carpenter/PA)

She has also given Lego to hospitals further afield, including Oklahoma Children’s Hospital as her son received proton beam therapy there in 2014.

Some people give the family Lego, while most donate money to a fundraising page set up by Mrs Carpenter, which is used to purchase Lego items as per the request of the hospitals which benefit from them, including Royal Marsden Hospital in London and Epsom Hospital.

“They tend to email me and might say, we’ve got a child in it who might have to have a transplant and they’re going to be in isolation for a few weeks and they really like Harry Potter, do you have a set like that?” she explained.

The Lego project is a way to remember James (Jane Carpenter/PA)

“I’ll look at the stock we have and if we haven’t got it, I’ll purchase it.”

“If we live close to a hospital, we’ll take the Lego down.”

She said feedback from places which have benefitted from the project has been “positive”.

Over 700 Lego sets have been given to hospitals and organisations helping those with cancer (Jane Carpenter/PA)

“Different nurses say, ‘James would love this’ and ‘keep up the good work that you’re doing’,” she said.

“Hospital staff say the Lego puts smiles on people’s faces and helps to keep children busy when they are going through treatment.”

Costs vary between sets, with roughly £15 being the lowest amount spent.

James Carpenter died in September 2022 (Jane Carpenter/PA)

She said this year, she extended the project to include adults as her son would have turned 24 and because “Lego has no age limit”.

“It’s hard for people to understand if they’ve not lost a child but doing this project keeps us busy and we love doing it and I hope we can keep it going for as long as possible,” she added.

Mrs Carpenter’s fundraising page can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/srhapt-james-box-of-smiles