Over 10,000 foster youth in Bay Area

Traveling foster care exhibit opens in Redwood City
Redwood City, 10/19/06

A new traveling exhibition seeking to raise awareness about foster children and youth in the Bay Area has just opened at a Redwood City gallery, where it will be on display until the end of the month.

The Bay Area Heart Gallery, currently showing at Studio 411 on Broadway in Redwood City, features color and black-and-white photographs of foster children of various ages currently waiting for adoptive families.

Dozens of professional photographers from throughout the Bay Area have contributed to the exhibition, a project highlighting the need for families in the Bay Area to come forward to provide permanent homes.

According to San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill, there are more than 10,000 children in the foster care system in the Bay Area, a large percentage of whom will "age out'' of the system because they have spent much of their childhood in foster care and group homes.

Heart Galleries have been effective in other areas of the country in creating permanent homes for foster youth, Hill said.

An opening reception for the Redwood City exhibit will take place today at 6 p.m. at 2625 Broadway in Redwood City.

The exhibition will move to Contra Costa and Marin counties in November.

For more information and to view the photographs, visit http://www.bayareaheartgallery.com