Heart Gallery NYC Launches First-Ever PRIDE Exhibit

Running June 10-20, the exhibit features LGBT foster kids photographed by celebrity photographers

Usually alone, often uncared for, haunted by poverty, unsure of the present and frightened by the future; these are the real life problems currently facing so many New York City children in the foster care system. National studies indicate that up to 50% of children in foster care programs will eventually face homelessness, incarceration in the penal system and hospitalization for physical and mental health problems. These challenges take on an even more significant role in the lives of boys and girls coping with gender identity and sexual orientation issues. Traditionally ignored and marginalized, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth often times face adulthood in a state of acute isolation during adolescence, the most vulnerable time in their lives. Yet this despair, aptly described as the shadow of “the love that dares not speak its name,” now gives way to a new light of hope and promise.

Heart Gallery NYC, noted for the iconic Heart Gallery photographic traveling exhibits featuring beautiful photographs by notable/celebrity photographers of youth hoping to find their “forever families” is collaborating with You Gotta Believe, the only organization in the New York City Metro area that solely limits its practice to finding permanent parents and families for young adults, teens, and pre-teens in the foster care system, to launch the first ever Heart Gallery PRIDE Exhibit.

The Heart Gallery NYC PRIDE Exhibit will feature LGBT youth in need of loving, adoptive families, and will play a critical role in fostering the understanding needed by these children and assist same sex couples to fulfill a common dream: creating “forever families.” The Heart Gallery Inaugural PRIDE Exhibit will launch on June 9, in honor of Gay Pride Month, hosted by the Times Square Alliance, located in the heart of Times Square. Heart Gallery NYC will also enlist members of Broadway’s theatrical community to engage positive media attention focusing on the needs of LGBT children and their prospective adoptive parents.

Heart Gallery NYC is an organization whose achievements are national in scope yet local in terms of impact. We are noted for the innovative use of banner-size photos of foster children displayed in highly traveled public venues such as Penn Station, Times Square and Grand Central Station, among other locations. We have achieved a remarkable success rate for matching boys and girls with loving families, and generated significant interest from families exploring how to build their families in non traditional ways.  Based on our achievements, and in conjunction with support from the Times Square Alliance and You Gotta Believe, we are confident that this current project will be a success and insure that hundreds of children throughout the New York City area will find the support they need from loving and nurturing families.

In previous years, Heart Gallery NYC events held at and hosted by the Times Square Alliance generated a significant amount of exposure from local and national print and electronic media outlets. Building on these results, we are committed to bringing a fresh light onto the children and same sex couples interested in adoption. We, at Heart Gallery NYC, are confident that a joint campaign venture between our dedicated staff and volunteers, members of the Times Square Alliance and You Gotta Believe will allow us to unite children and adults into loving and supportive families who will provide the support, love and structure every child needs and deserves.

We look forward to welcoming you at our inaugural PRIDE Exhibit at Times Square Alliance, from June 10–20, 2014! Check our website by June 1, for a full listing of other Manhattan venues exhibiting our posters of LGBTQ foster children during PRIDE month. Connect with us: www.heartgallerynyc.org, info@heartgallerynyc.org, www.facebook.com/heartgallerynyc, @heartgallerynyc, or call 212-965-8699.

 

The most “high profile” photographers engaged with capturing images for the PRIDE exhibit include:

  • Martin Schoeller
  • Amy Arbus
  • Deborah Feingold
  • Michael Sharkey
  • Gabrielle Revere

Of course, images of other notable photographers will also be on display.

The exhibit will have 36 photos in total — Approximately one-third of the youth in the Heart Gallery NYC exhibit identify as LGBTQ.


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