The name comes from a dog.
Her name is Akira. She is a fawn-colored pit bull with a white stripe on her chest. Move two letters in her name and you get Akari.
The founder of Akari Pathways spent years addicted to heroin. He would be out on the street for days at a time, wandering, in his own words, “like an empty skeleton of a human being.”
Through all of it there was one thing he did not let go of. He made it home to feed her. He sat with her. He played with her.
Some days she had been alone for almost twenty-four hours by the time he came through the door. She was hungry and she was lonely. And every time, she was happy to see him. Tail wagging, hugging him. She never asked where he had been.
She loved him no matter what.
She was the one light in the dark, and he kept coming home to it. In time he found his way out.
That is what this place is meant to be. Wherever you have been, and however long you have been gone, the light is on and someone is glad you came.