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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: July 19, 2008

PORT RICHEY - There are dozens of businesses at Gulf View Square mall, all displaying their wares in the hopes of enticing shoppers to dispose of a bit of their income.

Another display went up in the mall's center court this week, not so much to open wallets but to open hearts and homes.

The Progress Energy Heart Gallery of Pinellas and Pasco traveling exhibit will be on display at Gulf View Square through Sept. 15, featuring the portraits of children currently in the foster care system looking for a permanent home.

"We're excited to have them here," said mall marketing director John Liu.

"Any time you have a cause that centers around children, the public is very responsive," Liu said.

Since its inception, the Heart Gallery concept has depended on the generosity of strangers, and gotten it with gusto.

In 2001, New Mexico adoption specialist Diane Granito came up with the idea of creating a traveling exhibit featuring portraits of children in need of permanent families, putting faces on what for the most part had been an invisible population.

The gallery was meant to be an effective, safe way to initiate connections between children and prospective adoptive families.

The concept worked so well, there are now more than 100 Heart Galleries throughout the country.

"Florida's got quite a few Heart Galleries," said Katie Merritt. "There are only two employees of the Pinellas and Pasco Heart Gallery. I'm one of them, and the other is Kristen Brett. Other than that, everyone is donating their time and energy and talent."

On Tuesday, before the mall opened, Merritt was busy setting up the exhibit, with the help of a half dozen volunteers who set up the four-sided display stands and prepared the bigger-than-life photographic portraits to go on the stands.

Among the volunteers was New Port Richey councilwoman and Greater New Port Richey Main Street president, Judy DeBella Thomas, whose personal experience gives her an insight on the subject.

"My mother was a foster mom, so I was raised with foster children in the house," Thomas said. "They were three siblings whose family was caught in a predicament."

This was a long-term placement, she said. Nearly 40 years later, they are still part of each other's lives. When she heard about the Heart Gallery exhibit, Thomas fully understood its value.

"These are children who are caught in the drama of life through no fault of their own, and I think it's important for us to recognize the fact that as a society we get so caught up in adopting puppies and we fail to recognize sometimes that children, which are such a valuable asset to our future, that these are children with real lives that need to have permanent families," she said.

The need is definitely real, Merritt said as she sorted through the cards of the 52 children whose portraits would hang to start the exhibit's stay at the mall. Every child in foster care has a case manager, she explained, and they are the ones who suggest those who would be a good candidate for the Heart Gallery. Age, ethnicity or a mental or physical condition can all be obstacles for children hoping to find homes. Most of the children in the Heart Gallery are age 5 or older. Some have health issues.

"We don't like to say they are 'special needs,' because that has a negative connotation, but they often times have physical or mental disabilities," Merritt said.

For some, just being in the foster system takes its toll. A child who remains in foster care throughout childhood lives in an average of 17 foster homes.

"If you've been through 12 homes by the time you are 4, you're going to have issues," Merritt said. The goal of the Heart Gallery is to find what they call "forever families," a permanent, stable home life, for these children. Since its inception in 2006, Pinellas and Pasco Heart Gallery has worked with about 140 children and had about a 25 percent placement rate.

"Although that number can sometimes seem small, it's actually really huge, because otherwise these children would just disappear in the system and not have a chance," she said.

The gallery is just a tool to attract and direct people who are able, willing and interested to the organization's Web site, www.gallerykids.org>, where they can learn more about individual children, including video and audio clips, and find out how they can take the next step toward bringing a child into their family, and bringing a family to a child.

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