Santa Clarita’s Gentle Barn, home to abused and neglected animals of all shapes and sizes partners with the Department of Children and Family Services’ own Los Angeles Heart Gallery to find loving adoptive homes for children in the foster care system through the simple power of a great photo.
Animals are sure to bring a smile to any youngsters face. Children looking into the eyes of a majestic horse or watching a wallowing piglet play in the mud conjure up happy memories and make for some amazing photos. Couple this with the healing environment of the Gentle Barn, who caters to animals who have come from abuse and neglect situations, make this experience all the more powerful for our own children in foster care.
Take an amazing professional picture, capture a child’s spirit and personality in that picture and display it in prominent community locations. This is the magic formula used by the Heart Gallery of Los Angeles, a specialized adoption recruitment program, created to recruit new families for kids who would otherwise grow up in the foster care system. This formula has worked in finding forever families for some of LA’s hardest to place children. A partnership with the Gentle Barn several years ago netted these same results, finding a forever family for two sisters and a sibling set of five children simply through the power of a great picture.
The Heart Gallery LA hopes to have this same magic happen on Sunday April 15, 2012. From 10:30 am to 1:00 pm a Heart Gallery photo shoot will take place at the Gentle Barn with approximately 30 children in foster care.
The goal is simple, volunteer professional photographers will capture these children’s spirit and smiles in a great photograph. These amazing pictures will then be used in public community displays in hopes of finding a family for them.
Chronicle this magic as it unfolds and join us as we work to make a difference in the life of a child one heart at a time.