Boston Celtics Honor Hingham Boy For Australia Fundraising Effort

HINGHAM, MA — The Hingham boy whose efforts to sculpt small clay koalas has raised more than $293,000 to help wildlife injured and displaced in the recent Australia wildfires was honored as a Boston Celtics Hero Among Us. Six-year-old Owen Colley was celebrated during a timeout in the first half of the Thursday's game against the Golden State Warriors.

The Celtics said Colley was honored for his "thoughtfulness and forward-thinking in a time of great need."

The Colley family, which is from Australia, is donating the money to Wildlife Rescue South Coast,
which is building aviaries, boxes and enclosures for displaced animals, and helping individuals set up feeding stations on their properties so animals whose homes and food sources have been destroyed have somewhere to go. It is estimated that more than 1 billion animals were killed in the fires.

Caitlin Colley, Owen's mother, said Owen was asking about the fires and the animals and wanted to help in some way. So they decided to create a GoFundMe page and make one of the clay koalas for anyone donating $50 or more.

The original goal was to raise $1,000. As of Monday morning, the campaign was closing in on $300,000.

While the GoFundMe campaign is ongoing, the family did have to cut off the koala production on Jan. 19 due to the remarkable volume of donations.

"Thank you ALL for helping a little boy do a BIG thing — Owen wishes he could send a clay koala to everyone in the world!" the family posted on the GoFundMe page. "We are so proud of
this little boy and his kind heart."

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