Lego honors Sister Jean with lookalike statue for her 100th birthday

Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt already has a best-selling bobblehead and her likeness all over Loyola merchandise. But she’ll soon have a new knick-knack to add to her collection.

In honor of her 100th birthday on Wednesday, Lego celebrated Sister Jean, the Loyola men’s basketball team chaplain, by creating a lookalike statue made of more than 10,000 plastic bricks.

“We wanted to create something memorable for Sister Jean,” Greg Nuse, a master model builder at Legoland Discovery Center, said in a statement. “We studied Sister Jean meticulously in order to create this look-a-like, complete with Loyola colors, striped scarf and glasses.”

The statue also features the nun’s custom Nike kicks that read “Sister” and “Jean” behind the left and right heel.

The one-of-a-kind creation is more than 2¹⁄₂ feet tall and took more than 30 hours to construct.

Fans will be able to able to view the statue at Legoland Discovery Center Chicago in Schaumburg through the end of October. The Lego sculpture will then be moved to to its permanent residence at Gentile Arena, the home court for the Loyola men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball teams.

In addition to the statue, Legoland Discovery Center Chicago donated 100 admission tickets to its indoor Lego playground to a charity of Sister Jean’s choice. She picked Misericordia — a community, located just west of Loyola’s Rogers Park campus, that helps provide care for people with mild to severe developmental disabilities.