(ALLENTOWN, PA) – From the challenges of foster care and homelessness to independence, Akiva Sequoyah is rebuilding his life through hard work, initiative, and help from the Allentown Rescue Mission and its community partners. Reflecting on his journey, Akiva embraces a guiding principle: change your fate with determination.
Akiva spent most of his childhood bouncing around the foster care system. Eventually, in his mid-teens, his grandmother adopted him, but he found adapting to life outside of the foster care system harder than he imagined.
Wrestling with the difficulties of his unstable childhood, Akiva struggled in most areas of his life. “Anger was my greatest hurdle,” Akiva admitted. He graduated from high school, but at seventeen, he was arrested and charged as an adult. After spending time in jail, he didn’t have anywhere to go, and that’s when he found the Allentown Rescue Mission…