Fast forward to 2012 and then my grandmother, the late Clara Brathwaite, she lost her battle with cancer, which is the very reason and the driving force behind the Clara Lionel Foundation.
Tens of thousands of them already have made the short trip across the border. Lionel is one of them. He's confident in Argentina's chances to win the World Cup.
A visionary Lionel sales executive named Arthur Raphael, who died the year before, believed that if the company could keep kids interested in trains until age 14, they'd be hooked for life.
So they adopted, and we are a little nervous about how it's going because, um, when they first introduced us to Lionel, we could tell that it wasn't a great fit.
Including efforts to increase access to education globally through her Clara Lionel Foundation global scholarship program and her support for the global partnership for education and global citizen.