Nick Marriam should know. Diagnosed with lymphoma when he was 6, he was in the hospital and isolated from friends and family for long stretches of time, missing two years of school.

"The isolation is what got me," said Nick, now 18 and out of treatment.

"When I got out, I decided to go back to my friends I made in the hospital and bring them toys and stuff," he said. "And it eventually just progressed from my entire floor to my entire hospital. And then it just kept growing."

It grew into what's now called the Nickelby Project, a nonprofit organization that assembles and delivers gift bags for hospitalized children in 28 states, including North Carolina.

For his work with the project, Nick, who lives in Clayton, has been named a Huggable Hero by Build-a-Bear Workshop, an honor that comes with $10,000 - $7,500 in scholarship money and a $2,500 donation to the Nickelby Project.

That donation, and countless others from individuals and companies over the years, helps provide items for age-appropriate gift bags that Nick and other Nickelby Project volunteers deliver to hospitals. So far, the project has handed out more than 12,000 gift bags.

The bags contain things like toys, coloring books and crayons, stuffed animals, movies, music - "anything we get, we give 100 percent of it to the kids," Nick said.

Being a teenager himself gives him insight into what patients his age might want, and he enlists help in making selections for younger kids.

"My little brother, he lets me know what's cool in the younger generation," he said.

But his own experience is what drives Nick's efforts, which go far beyond just packing gift bags.

"That's why I do it," he said. "Because I know what they're going through."

His favorite visits are the ones at hospitals that allow him to deliver the bags personally, even though those visits aren't always the easiest.

"It's really great to go in and see them and watch them go through (the gift bag) and stuff," Nick said, "but it's kind of a double-edged sword, because they shouldn't be in the hospital to begin with."

As he prepares to start college, Nick is staying close to home, at Johnston Community College, so he can continue his work with the Nickelby Project, which he heads along with his cousin, Shelby McKnew of Maryland. ("She was there for me a lot" when he was in the hospital, Nick said.)

"It was really tough," Nick said of his years battling cancer. "I didn't think anybody cared. But when I go and visit, I try to let them know that people care."