Millie Qualls | Matchmaker

Molly Harrell

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“These kids just want to belong,” Millie says of the children pictured in The Heart Gallery, designed to help kids in foster care find a permanent home.

Millie was working as an adoption specialist when her husband saw a story about a similar program in Parade magazine. “He handed me the article and said, ‘you need to do this.’ I thought, who am I?”

But Millie kept talking about it with co-workers in Columbia, then met two women from Charleston who had read the same story. Together, they launched the South Carolina Heart Gallery five years ago.

Photographers volunteer their services, aiming to capture the personality of each child. An online gallery and exhibits around the state bring attention to these and hundreds of other children hoping to be adopted. Millie says, “I want people to know these children exist.”

Learn more at scheartgallery.org.