A traveling gallery spotlights foster kids.

Hip-hop beats set the mood as Robyn Fryday, photographer and co-chair of the Bay Area Heart Gallery, snaps sideways shots of 18-year-old Breanna.

Although Breanna has aged out of the foster care system, she still very much wants to find a family. These pictures could help.

In California, nearly 4,000 youth age out of the foster care system each year. At least a quarter of those youth experience homelessness.

The Bay Area Heart Gallery, a partnership that serves foster children, looks at those numbers through a different lens. On June 10, they arrived at the Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula with a gallery of 50 foster children portraits that will remain for a month. A two-hour reception this Saturday featuring music, food, and a chance to chat with photographers like Fryday celebrates its arrival.

Visitors will get a glimpse into an often forgotten world—they’ll be able to stop and laugh with luminous, 2-year-old Scorpio or smile with Nelson as he leans on the head of his brother Antoine (above).

Carol Bishop, assistant director of the Kinship Center, a foster and adoption care facility that partners with the gallery, says around 400 foster children in Monterey County currently have no permanent home.

Once these children reach 18 they lose all financial backing from the county. Bishop says kids of this age with no mentor create their own family, and often the result isn’t positive.

As part of the project, the gallery hopes to find families willing to adopt.

“You see children who have joy and who have heart and who have sadness,” says Bishop.  

THE HEART GALLERY and CHOMP co-host a free reception in the hospital’s Main Lobby, Holman Highway, Monterey, this Saturday at 3-5pm. 625-4544.