MIAMI (WSVN) - A group of South Florida children are getting the star makeover treatment to make a good first impression on potential families.
The children were provided with makeup and hair treatments in order to find a forever home.
Thirteen-year-old Giovanni Terry was a model for a day during a photo shoot that could change his life and take him out of foster care. “I never had a dad in my life, so I want to see how it is to have a dad,” he said.
“These kids really need. Without this, what can happen to them is scary,” said Emily Cardenas with The Children’s Trust Miami.
Twice a year, the organization puts a photo shoot together to help these kids find loving, caring homes.
“Kids who exit the foster care system without having been adopted have a much higher rate of not continuing on to college, of falling into drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness,” Cardenas said. “They have hearts of gold, and when people see them and talk to them, they’ll see what these kids are all about.”
John St. Clair is a former NFL player who mentors Terry on and off the football field.
“I’m trying to make him a well-rounded young man, as opposed to being an athlete,” St. Clair said. “He’s already a great athlete, but we want to make him a well-rounded young man.”
He credits the Children’s Trust and this photo shoot with raising awareness about boys and girls in foster care. “Kids don’t always open up when you talk to them, but once you engage with them enough, and they see you’re interested in them, you see they have hearts pure as gold. They want to be successful,” Clair said.
Terry said he has dreams of making it in the pros, but for now, he said, he will settle for something many of us take for granted. “I want to have a feeling of a good family with caring parents,” he said.
To learn more about these children, including Terry, and the possibility of adopting one of them, go to: www.miamiheartgallery.org.
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