--- title: 12-Year-Old Terminal Cancer Patient Gives Legos to Other Sick Kids description: Joseph Dees is the founder of Building Hopes canonical: https://time.com/3963624/cancer-patient-legos/ author: Daniel D'Addario article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-18T17:58:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:22:17.144Z og:title: 12-Year-Old Cancer Patient Distributes Legos to Other Kids og:description: Joseph Dees is the founder of Building Hopes og:url: https://time.com/3963624/cancer-patient-legos/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 12-Year-Old Cancer Patient Distributes Legos to Other Kids twitter:description: Joseph Dees is the founder of Building Hopes twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 12-Year-Old Terminal Cancer Patient Distributes Legos to Other Sick Kids > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=3fdea8f5-ffb6-4eca-b589-fa1dc2c35ce1&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Jul 18, 2015 5:58 PM UTC  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Jul 18, 2015 5:58 PM UTC Twelve-year-old Joseph Dees has been living with glioblastoma, an incurable brain tumor, for four years, enduring radiation, chemotherapy and many surgeries. Legos were among his only pleasurable pastimes, and now Joseph is bringing that joy and distraction to other kids. Earlier this year, Joseph and his family began buying and distributing boxes of Legos at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He went on to coin the name Building Hopes, a group that hopes to spur Lego drives across America. After the Legos from his recent drive are distributed, some 300 children will have received toys through his work. > [](https://twitter.com/people/status/622345134093520896) [Read the full story at PEOPLE. ](http://www.people.com/article/terminal-brain-cancer-patient-delivers-legos-sick-kids?xid=IFT-Trending) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3963624/cancer-patient-legos/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3963624/cancer-patient-legos/"},"headline":"12-Year-Old Terminal Cancer Patient Distributes Legos to Other Sick Kids","datePublished":"2015-07-18T17:58:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:22:17.144Z","description":"Joseph Dees is the founder of Building Hopes","url":"https://time.com/3963624/cancer-patient-legos/","keywords":["Newsfeed","society","U.S."],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel D'Addario","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3963624/cancer-patient-legos/","name":"12-Year-Old Terminal Cancer Patient Distributes Legos to Other Sick Kids"}}]}] ```