Throughout the United States, there are more than half a million children in foster care or state facilities. Many were removed from abusive or neglectful homes; others are orphans. Though they vary in age, ethnicity, and personality, all of these foster children have one thing in common: they long, more than anything, to find adoptive families that will love and accept them.

Unfortunately, most American couples that decide to adopt children often choose infants or very young children, leaving older children to wait for years in foster care. Many never find adoptive homes at all.

But in 2001, Diane Granito of Santa Fe, New Mexico, who worked as a foster and adoptive parent recruiter, had a bright idea to raise awareness of older foster kids around the country, and help them find forever homes. She knew that the photographs that were shown to potential adoptive parents of foster children were often poor-quality snapshots, and thought the children deserved more. So Granito decided to ask professional photographers to volunteer to take beautiful portraits of the children waiting for homes.

Soon, it occurred to Granito that these beautiful photographs needed a beautiful home. She decided to inquire at a local art gallery if it might be possible to display the photographs there. The gallery owner was thrilled by the idea—and, just an hour after the gallery opened the exhibition, a couple who saw the photos decided to adopt three sisters who’d been featured in the photographs.

Now, Granito’s project has expanded far beyond the Santa Fe area, into 48 states, through a nonprofit group known as the Heart Gallery, which has both a national branch and many regional branches. Thanks to her work and the efforts of volunteer photographers and organizers, more than 1,000 older foster children have managed to find forever homes.

“It was almost as if the country was waiting to be told these children are here, because nobody really talked about them before,” Granito said on the Heart Gallery website.

By Kathryn Hawkins