5 Kids' 'Family Wanted' Ad Gets 'Insane' Response

Though Kansas promotion 'didn't sit well' with at least one local
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 14, 2017 2:03 PM CDT
Updated Mar 15, 2017 3:03 AM CDT

Meet music lover Bradley, outdoor enthusiast Preston, hip-hop dancer Layla, Pokemon card collector Landon, and Olive, who mainly likes to be snuggled. These are the five siblings the Kansas City Star featured in its "Family Wanted" section on Saturday, and they're looking to all be adopted by the same family. Response to the ad about the siblings has been "pretty insane," Corey Lada of the Kansas Children's Service League, affiliated with the state's Adopt Kansas Kids organization, tells the Star. The original ad has been clicked more than 4 million times. The kids, ages 2 to 11, are identified only by their first names, and Lada didn't reveal much else about them other than to say they're all in different foster homes and that their case has been removed from the state website because so many inquiries have poured in.

Some critics have suggested the response has been so great because the kids are white: One Overland Park resident, for instance, says the children look like they stepped out of a "Lands' End ad" and that kids of other races—the Star notes Kansas has around 1,200 kids looking for families—don't get the same hype. Still, the director of an unrelated Kansas nonprofit says she hopes the kids end up under one roof. "That bond between siblings is the strongest thing they've got when parents are gone," she says. It's not impossible: A couple in Missouri is in the process of adopting five siblings, ages 6 to 15, from a Filipino orphanage, reports the Joplin Globe. Husband Aaron Jones recalls seeing his wife, Stephanie, crying while looking at their images online. "Oh cute, which one?" he asked. With his wife crying too hard to respond, he said, "All of them?" And then he agreed. (There's been a massive, troubling shift in US adoptions.)

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