Woman’s childhood story drives her love to foster kids, help moms

The motivation to foster is commonly linked to willing adults’ own childhood strife or void. For Gloria Sikes, a second catalyst includes sympathy for the child’s mother.

The Biloxi resident and husband Robin Sikes Sr. have fostered about 10 children over the years, including adopting one of them, 13-year-old Rahayley.

Gloria’s upbringing was difficult and the rigors for her single mother to provide for the family left a deep, lasting impression.

Robin Sikes, Sr. and wife Gloria, residents in Biloxi, Miss., are pictured with their adopted daughter Rahaley, 13, who was one of 10 children the couple fostered over the years from placement through Apelah Foster Care.

“In helping a child, I’m in some way helping that child’s mother – and I’m responding to my own childhood struggles as well as my mom’s,” Gloria acknowledged.

The Sikes both wanted to have a large family. Doctors determined they would be unable to conceive.

But doctors were wrong: She birthed three boys - now grown men - but was compelled to stop due to health concerns.

The longing for more children, however, remained. So, the couple opened a 24-hour childcare business in their home.

They then added fostering, and for Sikes, there’s an intentional preference to foster older children.

“I told Robin, ‘God has another plan.’ And he was on board with it.”

Robin said fostering impacted him in many ways, but most notably instilled patience he did not know he had. “Fostering also made me realize to look beyond the situation they are in and helped me see what those kids have been through and continue to deal with each and every day. It has given me a fresh perspective in how to help the kids and love them where they are unconditionally,” he said.

From the start Gloria pledged that to foster, she hoped to receive older kids “because they can sense feeling abandoned while young ones don’t face that. And because I remember what it’s like at that age to not having someone to confide in,” she explained.

Fostering through Apelah, every one of Sikes’ foster children routed into their home with some type of special needs issues.

So, the couple also tackled the countless hours of helping their foster children endure specialized therapy of one kind or another.

Apelah Case Worker Brenda Miller helped connect the Sikes to fostering and watched how the children placed in their care “blossomed” over the years.

“They provide guidance and stability with understanding and love,” Miller said. “They treat the children in their care as their own with love, respect, and compassion, that only someone with a true calling to helping others can possess.”

Gloria said the journey fostering “has made me a stronger person, and I want to share how they can find that too,” noting that they continue to advocate fostering with others.

“You have to have a heart for children,” Sikes advised for prospective foster parents. “But you must also have a heart to help. I don’t know how to turn love on or off.”

To learn more about fostering through Apelah, visit apelah.com. In the Ridgeland, Miss., area, contact Brenda Miller at brendamiller@apelah.org or call her at 228-260-0500.