Vol. 19, No. 1 • November 2014

Display the North Carolina Heart Gallery

Help Children Achieve Permanency through Adoption

A Heart Gallery is an exhibit of photographs of children in foster care in need of adoptive homes. North Carolina's first Heart Gallery premiered in Greensboro in 2005. Now the NC Kids Program, part of the NC Division of Social Services, has created an updated exhibit that will be ready for release in November 2014.

The Heart Gallery
The Heart Gallery matches children waiting for adoption with professional photographers who donate their time and talent to take portraits of the children. Thanks to these professional photographers, each child's spirit and remarkable personality shines through in the photographs. The Heart Gallery features children and youth most in need of adoptive placements in North Carolina: teenagers, sibling groups, and children with developmental and physical disabilities.

Once it is completed, the Heart Gallery will be released to exhibitors who will display the photographs to increase awareness of the need for adoption from foster care. The exhibits recruit parents for the children featured in the exhibit and for the hundreds of other North Carolina children waiting for forever families.

Exhibitors Play a Key Role
Exhibitors in the past have included hospitals, shopping centers, businesses, churches, libraries, private child placing agencies, local departments of social services, and many others.

NC Kids is excited to announce a partnership with the State Employees Credit Union (SECU). Over the next ten months a Heart Gallery will be exhibited in branches in each of SECU's 47 regions across the state.

Heart Galleries introduce people to adoption through foster care and have had success throughout the country in locating permanent adoptive homes for children in foster care. Six Heart Galleries will be available for display beginning in November 2014, with various sizes and exhibition options.

Be an Exhibitor!
Please help us achieve permanency for waiting children by exhibiting the North Carolina Heart Gallery in your community this year!

If you are interested in displaying the NC Heart Gallery or have questions, contact Jamie Bazemore ([email protected]; 919/527-6371).

 

~ Family and Children's Resource Program, UNC-CH School of Social Work ~