Ten-year-old Brooks Cyr was born with a cleft lip and palate and wears a hearing aid. His father, Michael Cyr, spent months and hundreds of dollars searching global resale markets for pieces that could help his son see himself in imaginative play.
Cyr, a Maryland father, began the hunt so Brooks could build a Lego version of himself, according to WBAL-TV. What started as a personal project soon grew into something bigger: Cyr sought enough pieces to supply families visiting Greater Baltimore Medical Center, the station reports.
Brooks, now a fifth grader, told the station that having a Lego figure that represents him matters. He also offered a simple, striking reflection on his own experience: children with differences, he said, are not always different. Brooks expressed gratitude for his father's efforts to help other kids feel recognized, too.
A Global Hunt for the Right Pieces
Finding the right combination of parts was no small task. Per the station's report, Cyr searched for roughly 30 sets featuring different skin tones, hearing aids positioned on different sides, and printed cleft lip details, receiving help along the way from Lego and independent resellers. The same account notes the search stretched across months and cost hundreds of dollars before Cyr had gathered enough variety to represent the range of children he hoped to reach.
The difficulty tracks with how recently this kind of representation has even existed. New Elementary noted a minifigure head print in Lego's September 2024 “Over the Moon with Pharrell Williams” set that appears to show a repaired cleft-lip scar; the set included 49 interchangeable head elements spanning diverse skin tones and facial traits. BrickNerd identifies City Main Square as the first set to include a minifigure with a hearing aid and notes that hearing-aid designs appeared in other sets. The Women's Brick Initiative also lists hearing aids and cochlear implants among Lego's disability representations.
Why Pieces Stay Locked in Rare Sets
Disability-related Lego pieces can be difficult to locate and expensive, and Cyr used resellers to find the pieces he sought.
The broader numbers help explain why this kind of representation carries weight beyond one family. A 2026 study by the Women's Brick Initiative found that the number of Lego sets featuring minifigures or mini-dolls with physical or sensory disabilities rose 942% over five years, with new representation expanding to include wheelchairs, hearing aids, limb differences, and prosthetics. The group also cites UNICEF estimates that roughly 1 in 10 children worldwide lives with a moderate to severe disability, underscoring the scale of kids who could benefit from seeing themselves reflected in toys.
Support Built Into GBMC's Cleft Care Team
Cyr's involvement with GBMC runs deeper than a toy project. He has served on the hospital's Patient and Family Advisory Council for about a decade, per WBAL-TV, giving him a long-running vantage point on what families navigating cleft care actually need.
Stephanie Boblooch, clinical program manager and clinical social worker at GBMC's Cleft Lip and Palate Center, said families who have lived through similar experiences can support new patients and help improve the way care is delivered. The center is part of GBMC's Randolph B. Capone Cleft Lip and Palate Program, according to GBMC HealthCare.
That kind of coordinated, long-term team matters because cleft care rarely ends with a single surgery. Cleft lip and palate are among the most common birth differences in the United States, with the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association estimating that between 6,000 and 8,000 U.S. infants are born each year with a cleft lip, palate, or both — roughly 1 in 1,050 babies for cleft lip with or without palate, and about 1 in 1,600 for cleft palate alone. Treatment often extends across years and multiple procedures.
Hoodline has previously covered a Navy sailor's trip from Pensacola, Florida, to Chicago, Illinois for her daughter's final cleft palate surgery, reporting that corrective treatment for the condition typically follows a multi-year surgical timeline stretching from infancy through late childhood, often requiring families to manage long-distance travel and specialized care teams for years at a time.
Part of a Wider Industry Shift
Lego's Friends line has featured characters representing diverse backgrounds and disabilities. The company has also partnered with Hidden Disabilities Sunflower to feature minifigures wearing sunflower lanyards, representing people with non-visible disabilities, according to The Guardian.
For Cyr, though, the mission comes back to a simple wish: that other families facing a child's cleft lip, palate, or hearing difference know that things will be okay. Between his years on GBMC's advisory council and his months spent tracking down just the right combination of Lego pieces, he has effectively built a small support system out of plastic bricks — one intended to help kids like Brooks see themselves reflected back, hearing aid and all.
