Owen Colley, a 6-year-old from Hingham, Massachusetts, is doing his part to raise money for wildlife affected by the bushfires in Australia. He's making and selling small koala bears and donating the proceeds.
To purchase a koala, donate $50+ to his GoFundMe Campaign.
The amount raised is rapidly increasing. On Tuesday it was $20,000, by Wednesday morning over $60,000!
According to an interview with CNN, two weeks ago the youngster asked his mom if any animals had been hurt in the fire. Upon her confirmation of this, he left the room and drew a picture of a kangaroo, a koala and a dingo in the rain. The picture represented his wish for Australia, a wish for rain and wildfire relief, his mom said.
'It was really the first time Owen had made a wish for something other than Lego or something other than himself,' Caitlin Colley told CNN on Tuesday. 'We asked him if he wanted to help and ... together we came up with this. We could make some clay koalas and give them in response to donations from friends and family.'
Owen started making little gray koalas out of clay and his parents set up a way for people to donate to Wildlife Rescue South Coast, a wildlife rescue group in New South Wales. The Colley family is sending one of Owen's koalas to each person who donates $50 or more. So far, he's made about 55 clay koalas.
As of Wednesday evening, Owen has raised more than $62,000 for the rescue group in just a week, his mom said. It started with $1,000 in donations via Venmo in an Instagram post, which was their fundraising goal. It got so big that the family launched a GoFundMe campaign.
To read full article on CNN, visit here.