"Laying the foundation"

Kim Bell, a mother and third-grade teacher from Memphis, Tennessee, is known to her students as "The LEGO Lady." Kim is a passionate believer in the creative benefits of LEGO play and has researched and written countless papers on the positive effects of creative LEGO play throughout her career.

Her 14-year-old son, Bobby, is an avid fan of LEGO and has received a LEGO gift for every holiday since his fifth birthday. He spends hours upon hours building and creating.

Watching Bobby's enthusiasm for LEGO, and seeing his collection of LEGO bricks grow ever larger, Kim had an idea. With Bobby at her side, she created a LEGO Camp at her elementary school, Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal School. The mother and son team produced proposals, brochures, activities and schedules together to get the camp running its first year. The response from children and parents alike was overwhelming - with one week left until the start of the camp, it had already exceeded its registration capacity. Building on three years of solid success, Kim and Bobby introduced a pre-LEGO Camp for first graders last year. Now, each summer Kim and Bobby share a growing collection of more than 25,000 LEGO bricks to inspire the imaginations of young campers.

"What will our community's future hold?" asked Kim. "I won't be surprised to see the engineers, artists, and architects of the future. As a parent and teacher, I can honestly vouch for the appeal, educational value, and researched benefit of playing with LEGO bricks."

Having already completed several LEGO NASA structures while growing up, Bobby hopes to follow his grandfather's footsteps and work for NASA one day. As for Kim, she hopes that as Bobby enters high school this year, "he remembers the foundation that has been laid for him... one brick at a time."