Kindalay Cummings-Akers, 1199SEIU Personal Care Attendant, with

Representative Stephen Lynch, and Senator Elizabeth Warren

Kindalay Cummings-Akers is a member of 1199SEIU and a Personal Care Attendant. She spoke at the White House Conference on Aging in late May. Kindalay has been a PCA since 2007 but has been providing care for 25 years.

Kindalay leads rallies for the Fight For $15, advocates against home foreclosures, facilitates leadership development workshops at local, state, and national conferences, and is a leader in her church and community in Springfield, MA.

She is the mother of four and the grandmother of four. Her daughter, Jovenia, now 33 years old, was born with a hole in the back of her brain with a cyst on it and with severe cerebral palsy. She doesn’t walk, talk or see but has a huge smile and a lot of love. Kindalay raised her from a baby and advocated strongly for her along the way. Providing care for her daughter, along with visiting her uncle who lived in a state facility for people with developmental disabilities when Kindalay was a child, inspired her to keep her daughter at home and ultimately to become a Personal Care Attendant.

Kindalay believes that God put her on her path by giving her Jovenia so she could learn to take a leadership role in advocating for her and other people with disabilities, seniors, and the people who care for them. Kindalay currently cares for an elderly man and is paid for that through the MassHealth PCA program and volunteers her time with her consumer’s wife who also requires care but does not have any services and she does it all with attention and love. Balancing her family’s financial needs with caring for others continues to be a challenge and working with other PCAs, Kindalay hopes to lift up the important work and difficult choices caregivers are faced with every day.

Kindalay is very proud of the work she does and is proud to be a role model for her children and grandchildren. When Kindalay looks back on her life she never would have imagined herself as a respected care provider, wife, mother, grandmother, community and union leader.

Her message to others in the field is to work hard and to remember that it takes a special person to provide care and support in people’s homes. Kindalay said, “You need to have a good heart and a lot of love.”

As she ages, Kindalay hopes she is blessed with a caregiver like her to support her to live with independence and dignity in her home.