A year ago, Kelley had no idea she would travel 16,000 miles to take these pictures and send them to Tray's mother in South Carolina.

Driving Bubba, her blue pickup, Kelley began touring the U.S. on Jan. 1. The 24-year-old set an ambitious goal after losing her job last year: visiting the 50 states in 50 weeks to help homeless people.

Kelley created a website, www.shaykelley.com, to document her 50/50 project. Through the Internet, she was contacted by a South Carolina resident months ago, she said, asking Kelley to find her homeless son living in Santa Cruz. So when Kelley hit the California coastline after 11 weeks of her journey, she stopped in Santa Cruz, found Tray and shot a video.

"Tray is pretty skittish normally. It's hard to keep him in the same place for a long time," said Ronne Curry, an Aptos resident working with homeless people, amazed by how quickly Kelley connected with Tray.

This might be because Kelley had her share of bad luck.

"People don't see me as homeless when they see my face," Kelley said. "But it could be the guy sitting next to us at the restaurant or at the bus station."

Kelley was working in marketing for AT&T. But her world collapsed in March 2009. She was laid off and her car was stolen the same week, she said. With no money to afford rent, she soon found herself on the streets of Jackson, Miss.

Kelley remembers walking out to the woods and yelling at God: "Tell me what you want me to do!"

The answer came a week later as she was sitting on a bench, writing a bucket list. At the top came her 50/50 project, Kelley said. She was going to meet and help homeless people all over the United States.

Kelley couch-surfed here and there, found a job in a restaurant to afford a pickup and rode a skateboard to work every day.

"Every beer that I served, I was one step closer to my dream," Kelley said, conviction glowing in her eyes.

Kelley received a tremendous support through her website, she said. Supporters shipped her camping equipment and a $1,000 camera to document the trip.