Heart Gallery of America ® Inc. Board of Directors
Broward
County, Florida
Heart Gallery of America ® Inc. President Matthew Straeb,
Executive Vice President
Global Security Systems
1650 NE 26th St. Suite 207
Fort Lauderdale, FL. 33305
Heart Gallery of America ® Inc. Treasurer,
Jesse J. Miller, Vice-President
Heart Gallery of Tampa Bay
Children's Board of Hillsborough County
1002 E. Palm Ave., Tampa, FL 33605
Diane
Granito, Co-Founder HGA and Honorary Chairperson
Heart Gallery of New Mexico (CYFD)
As a recruiter with the NM Children, Youth & Families Department
(CYFD), Diane launched the first Heart Gallery in March 2001 as
a way to help New Mexico's "waiting children" step from
the shadows into the light with dignity. Diane's background in business
and marketing, including 11 years with Columbia Pictures in Italy,
helped prepare her to organize and promote the unique project. Early
national media coverage raised some interest in the Heart Gallery
and in 2005, NM reporter Rosemary Zibart's Parade article on the
Heart Gallery helped spread this important message across the country.
In 2007 CYFD was awarded $100,000 by the NM legislature, to be
automatically renewed each year, for the Heart Gallery of New Mexico
and CYFD's successful adoption matching events. In 2005, Heart Gallery
of New Mexico Foundation was created and now supports adoption outreach
and the special needs of waiting children.
R.
Matthew Straeb, Co-Founder HGA and HGA President
Mr. Straeb is Executive
Vice President, Marketing for Global Security Systems, LLC (GSS)
and serves on the board of America's Emergency Network. As founder
of Heart Gallery of Broward, Mr. Straeb partnered with Diane Granito
to found Heart Gallery of America Foundation.
Mr. Straeb holds a bachelor's
of science degree in electrical engineering from Southern Methodist
University. He also has been a visiting professor on courses in
broadcast and entertainment technologies.
Jesse Miller began working with the Heart Gallery as a volunteer
photographer in 2002 and for the past three years has served as
the Director for the Heart Gallery of Tampa Bay. With a background
in the arts and working with at-risk youth populations, Jesse is
a published photographer and aspires to create more navigable systems
for adoptive families while increasing direct services that improve
the quality of life for kids in care.
Each year for five years running, The Heart Gallery of Tampa Bay
has created a new exhibit featuring 100 hard-to-place foster children
that tours to 6-8 high traffic venues in the Bay Area such as malls
and airports. HGTB has placed over 300 children in homes and has
recently created cable TV commercials, billboards and is developing
ancillary programs to provide mentoring and other direct services
for kids in care.
A former actress, entrepreneur and teacher, Laurie has always has
been interested in working with disadvantaged children, and as an
adoptive Mom, there is a special place in her heart for finding
adoptive homes for the kids. In Los Angeles she integrated special
needs kids into "regular" acting classes and initiated
a program with the Santa Monica Unified School District to create
dramatic arts classes for children with disabilities.
Heart Gallery NYC opened in late July 2007 with the Heart Gallery
PSA proudly presented on the world famous Times Square Astrovision
screen. Since then, better than 1 out of 3 Heart Gallery NYC children
have been matched or placed in pre adoptive homes, and the Holiday/Matching
Party resulted in another 6 potential matches.
Ella
Zamora, Retired (Texas Adoption Resource Exchange, 1992-2007)
Ella Zamora began the on-line presence of the Texas Adoption Resource
Exchange (TARE) in 1995 and the Texas Adoption Family Network (AFN)
in 1997. Over 4,000 families across the US have registered their
adoption preferences and staff can search for families who match
the needs of the children who become available for adoption. Ms.
Zamora was also the statewide recruitment specialist and developed
Foster and Adoptive Recruitment tools such as brochures, How to
Guides, videos, PSA’s and other print and media marketing products
to recruit foster and adoptive families.
Ms. Zamora has worked on several National Adoption Committees throughout
her career and was the state lead for Heart Galleries in Texas before
her retirement. in 2007. Ms. Zamora designed and published the Adoption
Exchange Association web site (AEA) and designed, published and
currently maintains the Heart Gallery of America ® Inc. web
site.
David
Louis founded Heart Gallery Hawaii in 2005. Drawing on experience
as a counselor, advocate and former foster youth, Heart Gallery Hawaii
was developed to serve children from the youth perspective while remaining
therapeutically positive. Our message to children: “With a smile
you can help everyone in foster care” gives participants the
opportunity to help others that are in similar positions by being
a voluntary part of our publicity campaigns. We also grant wishes
for the children, from clothes, gifts and scholarships to special
activities and even searching for “lost” family members.
Heart Gallery Hawaii has 60 professional photographer volunteers
and more than 200 activity and event volunteers across the islands.
We have both corporate and government financial support. We work
with DHS and all social service contractors to achieve goals for
foster children.
Denice
Grugle founded the East Texas Heart Gallery as a publisher in
2005 and achieved non-profit status in November 2005. Denice has always
had a desire to help in the area of adoption having one adopted teenage
sister and many foster sisters growing up. Denice was able to bridge
the gap in Texas between the waiting families and available children
by being an advocate and raising awareness in the Department of Family
and Protective Services about the gaps in the system that created
a long wait. East Texas Heart Gallery is piloting many programs with
the state that may serve as a "working model" for other
regions in the state.
East Texas Heart Gallery is rare in that it is a rural Heart Gallery
that covers 23 counties and hundreds of miles. Venues and photo
events are an ongoing collaboration due to the large area and limited
number of locations. Photo events are taking on new shapes utilizing
local college sports teams as entertainment. Venues have introduced
themselves in the form of churches and festivals. ETHG is creating
child specific public service announcements, creates rack cards
and a "hardest" of hard to place magazine. ETHG has partnered
with private agencies, the state and other non-profits such as CASA
to create a basket of resources for interested familes.
Website: http://www.EastTexasHeartGallery.com Contact:EastTexas Heart Gallery - 866-787-ADOPT
(2367) Committees: National Events, Advertising and Publicity
Christie
Obie
In 2006 A Family For Every Child was started by Christy Obie-Barrett,
the mother of 12 children, 9 of which are adopted. The Heart Gallery
opened in November 2006 and has grown to 10 continually running
venues in our area.
Since then our organization has gone on to create many other programs
all born out of the need seen during our first Gallery. An Adoption
Support Group, a Mentor program geared towards aging-out youth,
a Family Finding program meant to reconnect Foster children with
lost family members, a teen permanency program aimed at supporting
and training life long committed families.
Contact: 541-683-5769 - 407-396-8844 - E-mail: Christie
Obie
