Heart Gallery visits El Dorado

EL DORADO — The Project Zero Traveling Heart Gallery will be exhibited around El Dorado this week, said Karen Langston, county coordinator for The CALL in Union County on Tuesday.

The goal this week is to display the 42-foot wall at as many locations as possible, she said. The wall features photographs of Arkansas children in need of adoption.

“We are excited that the Wall’s first stop is at College Avenue Church of Christ. We pray we can expose our community to the fact that we are in desperate need of adoptive and/or foster families across the state, but in Union county we are in crisis,” Langston said.

She was at College Avenue Church of Christ on Wednesday setting up the exhibit, which features Arkansas children available for adoption.

The Project Zero traveling exhibit is a large traveling work that features the photos of current children waiting for their forever homes.

The goal of Project Zero is to raise awareness about adoption through the state foster care system with the ultimate goal of finding a forever family for every child that is waiting, according to the website, projectzero.org.

Project Zero strives to raise awareness about adoption in Arkansas through many promotional efforts. Project Zero also strives to build hope in and relationships with waiting children.

Children whose lives have been interrupted and disrupted by foster care and the termination of their parental rights often lose the hope of ever finding a forever family, according to the website.

Langston pointed out a photo of two boys. “These are Union County children, I recognize them,” she said, noting that the boys also appeared on last year’s wall.

“Last year we counted up and there were five children we recognized as coming from Union County.”

One of the main goals of Project Zero is to connect waiting children with their forever families.

The program creates opportunities for waiting children to meet potential families through the Heart Gallery tour dates, meet and greets with waiting families, child specific recruiting, our annual statewide Disney Extravaganza, our annual Heart Gallery gala and other informational events. We are also meeting monthly with our adoption unit and meeting individually as needed with waiting families.

The Heart Gallery started its tour of El Dorado at College Avenue Church of Christ on Wednesday. Today it will be in the Union County Courthouse from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, look for the exhibit at the El Dorado Conference Center from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturday, it will be on display at PJ’s coffee shop and The Spot from

10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

On Sunday, the exhibit will be at the First Assembly of God for the morning service and at West Side Baptist for an evening gospel concert.

On Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the exhibit will be at the MLK soup and salad ladies luncheon at First Baptist Church- Cordel.

On Tuesday, the exhibit moves to the Barton Library from 1 to 8 p.m.

“In Arkansas alone, we have over 600 children waiting to be adopted into a forever home,” Langston said. “Not to mention the over 7,000 children we see brought into state custody through foster care.”

“In Union County, we see on average 70 children in foster care at any one time,” Langston said. “While we are proud of the 15 adopts we celebrated in Union county in 2016, we still need more families. We need families that will open their lives and families to serve the least of these.”

The exhibit is a hard one to see, Langston said. “We see that there are children without a forever home. We see their faces,” she said.

For people interested in adopting or providing a foster home to a child, there will be an information meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 19 at the First Assembly of God Church in El Dorado.

“I’ll be there and we’ll explain the nuts and bolts of what it takes to get your home ready to be open for foster children,” she said.

Randal Curtman is the managing editor of the El Dorado News-Times. He may be reached at 870-862-6611 or by email at [email protected].

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