The Heart Gallery was founded by the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) in 2001 as a way to help foster children in protective custody become adopted. Stirring portraits, created by local photographers and placed in public and corporate locations, have helped to find many loving homes for these children through adoption.

In 2002 and 2003, the CBS special "A Home for the Holidays" focused on The Heart Gallery project. This resulted in the spread of Heart Gallery projects to many other cities and states. By January 2005, when Rosemary Zibart's touching Parade magazine article about the Heart Gallery came out, several hundred children in the "Heart Gallery" cities or states had already found homes through the project. On November 1, 2005 Union Station in Washington D.C. was the site of the opening reception for the first National Heart Gallery exhibit. Portraits of waiting children from around the nation were featured and speakers included "success story" families.

Since its inception, the Heart Gallery project has grown exponentially, expanding to dozens of states and cities. Heart Galleries in Texas include: Austin, Houston, Dallas & Fort Worth. Heart Galleries have been featured in People, the NY Times, The Christian Science Monitor and on MSNBC, CNN, ABC World News Tonight, and the Today Show. In April, Parade did a follow-up article on the impact of their first article and USA Weekend will be coming out with an article about the project soon.