A GREAT HONOR: Judy Cockerton remembers walking with her daughter in the Lego aisle of a toy store that Cockerton owned in Brookline about 10 years ago. A foster parent, Cockerton had two sisters in her care at the time and knew there were thousands of other kids in need of foster and adoptive homes, and was wondering what she could do to spread the word.

“I thought ‘OK, there’s about 25,000 kids coming out of age of adoption in the system who, if they’re not adopted or go into foster care, are at risk for becoming homeless or incarcerated,’ ” said Cockerton, a 61-year-old resident of Sharon. “So I thought, ‘What am I going to do about it?’ ”