Every child deserves a forever family

Heart Gallery of Pinellas and Pasco

The Heart Gallery connects children in foster care with their forever families through adoption. In addition to featuring children, we recruit and support families interested in adoption.

Heart Gallery

The Heart Gallery of Pinellas and Pasco is a program of Gulf Coast JFCS that connects children in foster care with their forever families through adoption. In addition to featuring children, we recruit and support families interested in adoption.

Since the Heart Gallery of Pinellas & Pasco was created in 2006, we have helped find more than 400 adoptive families for our waiting children.

Heart Gallery of Pinellas and Pasco 3-color logo

Support Adoption With Bear Hugs

Support the Heart Gallery of Pinellas and Pasco with a donation making adoption from foster care possible with #AdoptionBearHugs.

Teddy Bears are a special symbol in the foster child adoption world.  They represent finding a “forever family” as often at the adoption finalization hearing, the judge presents the newly adopted child with a cuddly “Bear” to represent the new forever family they are joining.

With your support, Bear will continue to be an adoption ambassador in Tampa Bay. With your generosity and support, you can uplift the lives of the children currently in foster care awaiting adoption. 

Make a Donation

WHAT WE DO

How it Started

In 2001, a professional photographer and an adoption recruiter in New Mexico created the concept of using inspiring portraits of older children and sibling groups who were waiting for adoption.

Appropriately named “The Heart Gallery,” the model spread and it became clear that a national organization was needed to pool resources, share best practices, seek grants, create corporate partnerships and provide ongoing support to areas without a Heart Gallery presence.

Since the Heart Gallery of Pinellas & Pasco was created in 2006, we have helped find more than 400 adoptive families for our waiting children.

How it works

Local Adoption Case Managers send referrals to the Heart Gallery for children most in need of recruitment efforts to help find families interested in adoption.

We work with local art programs who donate their time and talent to help youth available for adoption express themselves on canvas. Those pieces of art are displayed throughout galleries in the community, on our website, and on social media so potential adoptive parents can connect with them. When a potential parent–an individual or couple–sees a child they are interested in, they submit an inquiry using the “inquire about this child” button.

After an inquiry has been submitted, we are here to answer questions as well as offer links to resources and support. Please understand that we cannot provide more information about the children than you see here. If you are a potential match, you will be contacted by the Adoption Case Manager or directly through the lead agency, Family Support Services of Pinellas and Pasco Counties. 

ADOPTION PROCESS & RESOURCES

Bear with Heart Gallery staff

The first step on your adoption journey is learning about what exactly the journey entails. Adoption is a unique way to build your family while changing children’s lives and enriching your own. While becoming a family is the biggest benefit, the State of Florida has many more to offer.

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Life Made Possible By Adoption

 Our Adoption Journey Is Just The Beginning
-Richard and Angela Lowes

We started our adoption journey three years ago, in 2017.  After working with an adoption specialist who pointed out a pair of siblings on the Pinellas & Pasco Heart Gallery site, we met them and were very excited to move forward as a potential match.  Unfortunately, after we met the boys, the foster parents changed their minds and decided they wanted to adopt the boys. We were crushed but believed our kids were still out there waiting for us. 

Months later and after another failed match, we finally met our kiddos. We met our children in August of 2020 and, when we got in the car after the visit, we looked at each other and knew we were going to adopt these children.

We began our visits in September 2020 and the children moved in with us on December 28, 2020. The year and a half between meeting our kids and leading up to our becoming a family was a crazy road including the birth of a biological sibling, but on July 15, 2022, our family became complete when we finalized the adoption of our four children. It is the day we have been waiting for three years!