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News Specialist Stacey Butler reportingPeople across the country have been touched by the story of 3-year-old Jonathan Jacob, who was abandoned over the weekend at a Salt Lake City ShopKo.
The offers to adopt Jacob are pouring in from all over the country.
Moms and dads, licensed foster parents -- people who never dreamed of adopting all want to take Jacob home.
The phone calls and emails are pouring in.
"The response has been overwhelming," says receptionist Nancy Mackey.
"The calls are coming throughout the United States," says Dallas Pierson, president of the Utah Foster Care Foundation.
"(They're coming from) Alabama, California, Arizona, Connecticut," Mackey says.
And so are the emails.
One from Minnesota reads: "We would love Jacob to join our family."
Still others from New Hampshire and Spokane offer a loving and a stable home for Jacob.
His story made national news last night. And today...
"It's amazing that one face can generate so much interest," Pierson says.
The Utah Foster Care Association and the Division of Child and Family Services have been inundated with phone calls from people like Sharilyn Nelson that want to adopt the boy.
"They put up his picture on the TV, his brown eyes just jumped out at me," Nelson says.
It's so overwhelming at DCFS that they had to put out an email to their staff about how to respond.
In Utah, nearly 2,000 children are in foster care. Of those, dozens are legally ready to be adopted. But it's Jacob that residents from all over the country want to adopt.
"They see this young child with beautiful eyes and they're just compelled. They want to be able to help this young man," Pierson says.
Jacob is staying with a local foster family right now. Authorities say it's too soon to talk about adoption. Interested parties are told to first become legal foster parents, then file a request.
