Banners & billboards celebrating National Adoption Month unveiled in Little Rock

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – In celebration of National Adoption Month, the Arkansas Department of Human Services unveiled new banners and a living billboard on Main Street in Little Rock on Monday.

According to the department, the goal of the banners and the billboard is to celebrate the kids who have found their forever homes and to highlight the need for the kids still waiting.

In partnership with Project Zero, 16 banners were placed for the viewing of drivers and passersby, highlighting the images of 32 children currently waiting in foster care and available for adoption.

The banners have been placed in Little Rock in years past; new this year is a living billboard on the catwalk between 7th and 8th street.

It was a creative idea from her staff that prompted the billboard, according to the Director of the Division of Children and Family Services, Tiffany Wright.

“We said, what if we displayed something in the sky bridge and also kind of provided a countdown for what was going on with adoption in our state, and so that’s how that vision was born,” Wright said.

The billboard has images of children on it, and in the center, it displays a tally of the number of children still waiting for adoption in the state of Arkansas. The tally will be updated each time a child is adopted until the end of the calendar year.

At the start of the unveiling, that number was 179, but during the unveiling, the department announced that the number had dropped to 178. That number represents a record low for Arkansas and the second consecutive year below 200.

“It just signifies all the efforts we are making in our state to move children out of foster care, and to find their forever families,” Wright said.

During the celebration, two stickers with the words “family found” were placed on two of the banners on the street. Wright said that they have “adopted” stickers ready too when the time comes.

Wright and Project Zero Executive Director Christie Erwin gave remarks during the unveiling, and both said that they will continue to work tirelessly alongside the department and the team at Project Zero to find more kids their forever homes.

“What if this moment became a movement towards zero waiting kids?” Erwin said. “Until we get to zero, we’ll continue to fight, and then when we get to zero, we’ll go help another state.”

Wright encouraged anyone who wants to learn more about how to become a foster parent or about adoption to go to EveryChildArkansas.org or TheProjectZero.org.