Five Acres Announces “Adoption” of the 4-ft Sculpture “Boy 5A” to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Foundation

Five Acres completes 2014 Permanency Campaign with the Adoption of Boy 5A and Announces Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties as Boy 5A’s permanent home and “forever family”

Thursday, March 5 –[ Altadena, CA] Five Acres completes their Boy 5A fostering campaign with the adoption (purchase of) the 4 foot sculpture. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Foundation has bought the artistic piece in the form of a donation to Five Acres Permanency Campaign, in the amount of $10,000.00.

Likened to the “Cow on Parade” in Chicago and the “Community of Angels Project” in Los Angeles, the Boy 5A Project was designed to educate the public on the crisis that is the current foster care system. Five Acres’ mission with the Boy 5A Project was to help bring heightened awareness and create a sense of urgency for the more than 20,000 children currently living in the Los Angeles foster care system.

Of the over 400,000 children across the nation in foster care, nearly 61,000 are in the state of California and of that number a third live in the city of Los Angeles. The hope is that Boy 5A triggers action and more prospective foster and adoptive families will step up and make the commitment to either foster or adopt.

As of today, Five Acres can report out at least three prospective foster families currently in Five Acres foster care trainings who had heard about the opportunities to foster>adopt through the Boy 5A Project and the advertising of the 20,000 By 2020 Permanency campaign.

For nearly one hundred days, Boy 5A was on display in seven various corporate partners’ public spaces, lobbies, courtyards and offices; representing (on average) the many homes and adjustments a foster child experiences while in care. Capturing the joy and hope of the children, Boy 5A has helped Five Acres drive home the message that children in foster care are just that – children – with the same basic needs as any of their peers. When foster children placed in a permanent family solution, they have the same opportunities to thrive and grow.

With the purchase of Boy 5A by Berkshire Hathaway Foundation, the sculpture has found his “forever family” and thus, culminating the Boy 5A Project and advocacy campaign.

For more information please go to www.5acres.org/advocacy-now or contact Director of Communications, Rebecca Haussling at rhaussling@5acres.org (626) 773-3809.