TYLER, Texas (KLTV) – Eight months after its debut in the community, the Heart Gallery East Texas program continues its advocacy for foster children in the region.
This week, they launched their biggest heart gallery yet, with 50 portraits of East Texas foster kids exhibited inside the busy Plaza Tower lobby in downtown Tyler. Heart Gallery East Texas Director, Gillian Sheridan, shares their purpose.
“Our goal is to inspire adoption,” Sheridan says.
With the help of the Fostering Collective and 4 Kids 4 Families, the program has brought the faces and stories of foster kids to public and private spaces across East Texas. This week, they were able to showcase their collaboration with Gallery Main Street.
Downtown Specialist, Lindsey Froneberger, says sharing their gallery space for such a cause has been a great opportunity.
“As a municipally owned gallery, we thought it’s just such a really neat opportunity,” says Froneberger
So far, 130 kids have been featured in the East Texas heart galleries, 40 of them already placed in permanent homes. Sheridan share’s continued exposure will be key, to helping many more. The galleries showcasing the most overlooked kids in the system.
“So these kids have about a 1% chance of being adopted, and it’s because they’re older, they’re sibling groups, or they’ve got some extra needs. But when we work with the community through collaboration…we share these stories, we share their pictures, their chances of being adopted can go from 1% to 60%.”
With their latest gallery inside Plaza Tower, the opportunity to connect with dozens of residents day in and day out could result in change for a foster kid.
“A lot of people come to the Plaza Tower lobby not intending to come to the gallery, but they stumble upon it and then that’s when they get engaged and see the art and learn what the exhibit is,” Froneberger said.
To visitors like adoptive mother MegAnne Calverley and her teenage daughter Chandra Broillet Calverley, it’s made them feel seen.
“They may be older, but, like, at the base of it… all they need is like a loving home and there’s…. yeah, there’s people out there that can do it,” MegAnne shares.
For anyone who wants to view the exhibit, you can visit the lobby of Plaza Tower in downtown Tyler. The address is 110 N College Ave Suite 105, Tyler, TX 75702. The exhibit runs from April 22 to April 29 and is open to view from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. each day.
To learn more about Heart Gallery ETX kids or get involved with the mission, you can visit their website here.
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