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100 Cleft Portraits Tour · July–August 2026

12 Cities. 100 Portraits.
One Unforgettable Journey.

The 100 Cleft Portraits Tour, presented by ACPA, has come to a close — but the story is still being written.

What began with one cleft diagnosis in Singapore has become a global movement rooted in face reverence and trauma-informed cleft care. In the summer of 2026, 100 Cleft Portraits journeyed across America.

This project honors people born with cleft as they are: powerful, complex, beautiful humans. Not problems to be solved. Each portrait tells a real story and carries a simple truth — people born with cleft deserve the same respect, dignity, and seat at the table as everyone else.

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A woman looks at portraits hung on windows in San Diego, California

One month. 9,544 miles. 12 cities. From July through August 2026, the 100 Cleft Portraits Tour carried 100 original portraits — and the stories behind them — across the country, reaching more than 1,200 attendees in hospitals, museums and community spaces.

This page is where those numbers meet the people behind them: what we saw at each stop, what attendees told us, and everyone who helped make the tour possible.

The artist

Katie Manning

At the center of it all was artist Katie Manning, whose vision began with a simple but powerful idea: to create positive, beautiful representation of people who just so happen to have been born with a cleft.

By the numbers

The tour, measured in miles and moments.

Behind every number are the people who showed up, shared their stories and made each stop something entirely its own.

Miles traveled — Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to San Diego, CA
MI

Hover or tap a stop to see the city · full route below

Cities

Attendees

Instagram views, Jul–Aug

Portraits, 100 stories

The route

Twelve stops, one coast to the other.

Philadelphia, PA → San Diego, CA
9,544 miles

Representation

Seeing yourself represented matters.

Representation showed up in small, specific moments: a child recognizing a face like their own on the wall, a parent pausing over a stranger's story, an adult with cleft finding an experience that matched their own. At several stops, Katie handed finished portraits directly to the people they belonged to.

Tour attendee

“It made me feel really seen and included.”

— Mila

A child stands next to a portrait of herself as a baby.

Connection

And sometimes, seeing yourself leads to finding each other.

The portraits brought people into the same room — and from there, people found each other. Families drove hours and crossed state lines to attend, and at stop after stop, attendees who'd never met formed connections that reached past their own hometowns and care teams.

A parent, after a tour stop

“These connections wouldn't have been made without this tour.”

Families mingling and looking at portraits at the Grand Rapids Children's Museum

Education

Lived experience became an opportunity to learn.

The tour doubled as a teaching moment. Katie spoke with residents and healthcare providers about communicating with families through surgery and its emotional weight, and residents volunteered on-site, meeting the community outside a clinical setting. Local hosts built their own programming around each stop — self-portrait workshops, trauma-informed parenting sessions, family activities — so every city added something the last one didn't.

An auditorium shows medical professionals listening to Katie Manning speak at grand rounds at Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando, FL

In the press

The story reached far beyond 12 tour stops.

609

Media pickups

18K+

Press release views

7,457

Engagements

168.7M

Potential audience reach

Media coverage included:

AP News Yahoo Finance KTLA Los Angeles Fidelity + local coverage in all 12 tour cities

Thank you

This took a community.

None of this happens without the cleft and craniofacial community saying yes — twelve times over. Thank you to the individuals and families who shared their stories, the ACPA Approved Teams, hospitals, museums and community partners who hosted us, the volunteers who showed up, and everyone who traveled near or far to be there.

Much of that network is part of the ACPA community itself — seeing it come together around Katie's work was one of the tour's quiet highlights.

National sponsors

We're just as grateful to the city sponsors, community partners, and grassroots allies in every one of our twelve cities — this tour wouldn't have happened without you.

What's next

The tour may be over.
The stories aren't.

Twelve cities down. The story keeps going — new posts, photos and moments from the road are landing on Instagram and across ACPA's channels in the weeks ahead. The portraits finished their 9,544-mile route; the connections they created are still moving.

100 portraits. 100 stories. 12 cities. So many reasons to feel seen.

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Support ACPA

ACPA supports, educates and encourages families at critical points in their cleft and craniofacial journeys. Your gift supports ACPA as we create a world where individuals with cleft and craniofacial conditions thrive.

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