2010 Year in Review

By Carrie Craft, About.com Guide

• November brought us National Adoption Month which focuses on adoption from the foster care system.

• National Adoption Day, November 20, 2010, was very successful with 4,800 children from foster care adopted during the 11th Annual National Adoption Day. After more than a decade, the number of children in foster care adopted on National Adoption Day totals nearly 35,000.

• The Heart Gallery NYC launched new photographs of foster children in need of adoptive homes. The Heart Gallery NYC is made up of 100 portraits of New York City foster children who are awaiting adoptive families. These portraits were displayed and the exhibit launched as part of National Adoption Month. Adoptee Darryl 'DMC' McDaniels shared his adoption story as part of the unveiling ceremony, which was an invitation only event for prospective adoptive families, the children of the heart gallery and some of the photographers. The gallery will then travel throughout the five boroughs during 2010 and 2011.

• We learned that Sheryl Crow, age 48, requested closed adoptions, and a few of our readers had a problem with it, and shared their concerns in blog comments. Crow shared that she felt that it would have been too tough on birth mothers to see their children grow up in magazines.

• In honor of National Adoption Month, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation announced a donation of 150,000 USD to SOS Children's Villages USA. The donation provided by the Jolie-Pitt Foundation will help a family of four foster children in an SOS Children's Village within the US.