AUSTIN, Texas — Every week on KVUE, we feature a different child in the Texas foster care system, in hopes of helping them get adopted by a forever family.
Eric is an energetic and hilarious 11-year-old in the sixth grade who is always up for an adventure.
He met up with KVUE's Hannah Rucker at the Crux Gym in South Austin for a challenging morning of rock climbing. Andrew said he's always loved to climb ever since he was really little because growing up at home, he and his brother would build makeshift jungle gyms around the house.
"Yeah, we even put our pot plant tree and all our plants in there to make it look like a jungle. We stuck some paper leaves on the wall, we colored the shoe laces green and made them look like vines," Andrew said.
When asked what those memories mean to him, he said, "It means that I still have family and somebody does care about me."
Andrew said his favorite subject in school is science.
"I would love to be a scientist someday," Andrew said.
He said he would also love to live near a forest or a beach someday.
To learn more about Andrew or to put in an inquiry to adopt him, visit his page on the Heart Gallery of Central Texas.
PHOTOS | Forever Families: Meet Andrew
KVUE launched the Forever Families segment with Partnerships for Children (PFC) in June 2020 to highlight children in the Heart Gallery of Central Texas who need secure and permanent families. Every day, there are nearly 1,000 children waiting to get adopted in Central Texas, according to PFC.
Editor's note: The children who are in the Heart Gallery program and featured in KVUE's Forever Families segments are children who have had every effort made on their behalf to connect them with family or others in their community to provide options for permanent, adoptive homes. Through no fault of their own, that hasn’t happened yet, and so in partnership with the Department of Family and Protective Services, we collaborate to bring awareness to KVUE viewers about these children in the hopes of finding them permanency before they age out.