Wednesday, June 07, 2006

The Heart Gallery

Very rarely will you find posts on my blog about news items (I'm not as much of a newshound as Darryl is), but this story recently featured on 20/20 grabbed my attention.

It was a story about The Heart Gallery, a project geared to help older kids get out of the foster care system and into permanent adoptive homes. Since the inception of The Heart Gallery, adoption rates of older kids have increased 280 percent.

What is this project exactly? It's simple. A photographer observed that the photographs often shown to prospective adoptive parents looked like "mug shots"--photos much like school pictures, expressionless faces against a fake background. A team of renowned photographers decided that these kids needed photos that showed their spirit and their personalities, and thus, The Heart Gallery was born.

I love when a simple idea has a huge impact--you know, those ideas that make you think, "Why didn't someone think of this before?"

Anyway, you should check out the story. You should also clink on the link on the side of the page to look at some of the pics from The Heart Gallery; they're incredible.

1 comment:

RealTimShady said...

Thanks for making me start my morning feeling all sappy and sentimental.

Actually, this is a great project -- it made me want to adopt a child.

(I hope my mother is not reading this...she might give me some more adoption brochures.)