BATON ROUGE - The builder of the St. Jude Dream Home for the past 15 years, Jairo Alvarez, died Saturday, according to St. Jude officials. 

He had been battling cancer over the past two years and was battling an infection that no one was able to identify for over a week. St. Jude says it's a "sad loss for St. Jude and the community."

In June, Alvarez was the feature of a WBRZ 2 Make A Difference piece. During an interview Alvarez said "When you see thousands and thousands of children of families going through this, I cannot give up, I'm going to continue doing this."

Alvarez was 75 years old.