When Wade Myers was a child, he loved building with Lego sets — colorful, interlocking plastic bricks that could be used to construct various objects and structures.
“He was extremely smart, and so I think that was kind of an outlet for him to get that smartness out,” Wade’s mother, Candace King, says of her son’s interest in Lego sets. “School didn’t challenge him enough. He loved building the stuff, he loved having to put his mind to it.”
King recalls a specific set that Wade wanted very much when he was 10. It was a set that cost $60 or $80, she says. With the family hard-pressed for money at the time, Wade performed extra chores around the house and saved up the cash he received to purchase the Lego set.
“Working was never his strong suit,” King laughs. “He would do anything to get out of chores, so you could tell that meant a lot to him.”
During a shopping trip to Walmart, with his hard-earned chore money tucked into his wallet, Wade picked out the Lego set his heart had been set on and he and his family made their way to the store’s checkout line. While in that line, waiting to purchase that prized Lego set, Wade saw a woman in front of the family come up a few dollars short for her grocery purchase. Wade told his mother he wanted to put the Lego set back and give the money he had saved to the woman at the register — “She needs it more than I do,” he said.
“I argued with him,” King recalled. “I said, ‘You worked so hard for this and I want you to reap your reward,’ and he said, ‘No, Mom. I won’t take no for an answer.’”
Wade gave the woman — a stranger in the checkout line at Walmart that day — not only the $3 she needed to cover the cost of her purchase, but all the money he had in his wallet.
A proud mother, King couldn’t help but brag about her son’s act of kindness and selflessness. That following week, her boss called King into her office to say she wanted to pay for Wade’s Lego set.
“He was so excited,” King remembers. “He was like, ‘Mom, God has blessed me to be able to help that lady and still get my Legos.’”
Despite having the opportunity to again purchase the Lego set he wanted, Wade showed yet another example of his giving nature — he got a smaller, less expensive set so he could also get something for his younger brother.
“He was always like that,” King says, emotion apparent in her voice. “He was like that with everything.”
King says she would get calls from Wade’s teachers on a regular basis about his kindness to others — if he saw a disabled student in the hallway he would make sure they got to class on time, he would sit with the kids who sat alone and he stood up for other children who were picked on. Wade carried that kindness and his giving spirit into his teenage years until, on March 21, he passed away unexpectedly at the age of 17.
At his funeral, King says she was approached by so many people who had witnessed Wade’s kindness and helpfulness — parents of students in band at Buford High School told her Wade was always one to volunteer when help was needed.
A student in Wade’s band class told King that her son had believed in him and encouraged him when he wanted to play percussion. Wade himself started out in band playing saxophone and had transitioned to percussion.
“That boy told us that it made the biggest difference to have someone support him,” King says. “To have someone believe in him like that, it taught him how to believe in himself.”
Wade’s 18th birthday would have been Sunday, Dec. 11. With his first heavenly birthday approaching, King said she wanted to do something special to honor her son’s memory.
“I had a million ideas and none of them seemed like the right fit,” she says. “I finally started praying.”
While sitting on her porch one night, King was thinking about the memory of Wade giving his money to a stranger in need and his love for Lego sets.
“The more I thought about it, the more it just blessed me because I thought, this is a way I can continue his spirit, he can continue to impact the world,” King says.
Stemming from that cherished memory, King is planning Wade’s Lego Legacy, a community event where Lego sets donated in Wade’s memory will be given out for free to children in the community.
Leading up to the Saturday, Dec. 10, event at the Buford-Sugar Hill branch of the Gwinnett County Public Library, Wade’s family is collecting donations of new Lego sets of any kind. There are several ways members of the Buford and surrounding communities can help — by donating a new Lego set at one of three donation locations, by ordering a set through an Amazon Wish List to be sent directly to Wade’s family and by making a monetary donation that will be used to purchase Lego sets for the community event.
Donations can be dropped off at Impressions Spirit Wear Boutique at 95 E. Main St. in downtown Buford, the Buford City Schools Central Office at 2625 Sawnee Ave. and True Source Family Chiropractic at 11 Buford Village Way, Suite 127, in Buford.
Those who wish to purchase a set through the Amazon Wish List can do so by clicking here.
Monetary donations can be made through Cash App to $cking0903 and through Venmo @Candace-King-24.
For those whose children receive Lego sets during Wade’s Lego Legacy, “I hope they take away hope,” King says. “I know there’s a lot of people who are struggling, wondering how they’re going to buy Christmas gifts. God will make a way, He is our provider, and I hope they will be inspired by Wade and his legacy.”
King says she connects a specific passage from the Bible, Jeremiah 29:11, with the community event honoring Wade’s memory. That Scripture reads, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
“That’s the verse that I prayed over (Wade) his entire life,” King says. “When he died, it felt like a death of that hope. It was very hard to find meaning in that, but I hope this will be a redemption for that, that there is a hope and a future for him still.”
