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‘Lego Nenshi’ a part of Calgary Public Library’s fundraising effort

‘Lego Nenshi’ a part of Calgary Public Library’s fundraising effort

Move over, Robbie Bobbie, here comes Lego Nenshi.

“You can have your own little Naheed,” Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi tweeted on the weekend.

The limited-edition mini-mayor comes with a $100 donation to the Calgary Public Library’s IdeaLab project, which is based on the notion that digital tools are just as important to literacy as books.

“We envision the IdeaLab as a space dedicated to increasing our city’s digital and creative skills. It will give people of all ages access to cutting-edge technology while nurturing problem-solving skills,” the project’s Kickstarter page says.

The library built a 100,000-piece Lego replica of its new central library, due to open in 2018, and it’s crowdfunding to raise $100,000 for phase one of the IdeaLab to pay for Lego education packages, software for developing design, photo and data-mining skills, and a how-to guide for other libraries to develop their own creative tech spaces.

“Because of the library I spent every Saturday afternoon immersing myself in new books and new stories and feeling even more a part of this community,” Nenshi says in a video posted by the library.

Only 95 Lego Nenshis are available. As of Monday morning, 24 had already been claimed. All backers will also be invited to the Lego model “tear-down party” and get to take a souvenir Lego brick home.

Toronto-born Nenshi became the first Muslim mayor of a major North American city when he was elected in 2010. He was re-elected in 2013 with nearly 74 per cent of the vote and is something of a civic rock star, lauded for some of his reforms and for his handling of the 2013 floods that ravaged his city and parts of the province.

Nenshi is often contrasted with former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, whose “Robbie Bobbie” bobblehead dolls were a big seller in 2013.