Florida Orphan Davion Only Pleads for Family to 'Love Me Until I Die'

The 15-year-old made a public plea for a family in a St. Petersburg church.

ByABC News
October 17, 2013, 1:25 PM

Oct. 17, 2013 — -- Davion Navar Henry Only has been waiting for a family all of his life and he recently decided to take matters into his own hands. He has only one desire for his prospective family: "to love me forever."

Davion, 15, has been in foster care his whole life, but has never had a family. On a recent Sunday, he stood in front of St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg, Fla., and made a public plea for a family.

"I'll take anyone," Davion said. "Old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple. I don't care. And I would be really appreciative. The best I could be."

The plea has garnered national attention that Davion hopes will help him finally find a family.

"If you can, reach out and get me and love me until I die," Davion told ABC News.

"I'm praying and still hoping," he said. "I know God hasn't given up and I'm not either."

Back in June, equipped with a copy of his birth certificate, Davion went to a library and searched his birth mother's name online. He had been born while she was in jail. He found out that she had a criminal background that included drugs and theft. He also found her obituary. She had died just a few weeks earlier.

"When I found out she died, I was kind of angry," he said. He remembered thinking to himself, "This is ridiculous. How did I not know?"

He cried in the library, but decided his family's history wouldn't define him.

"When I found out all that stuff about my family, it made me want to be more successful, no matter what," Davion said. "I don't want to go down that same path."

"I'm not going to use all my bad stuff that happened to me as an excuse, but I'm going to use it as motivation to push me more and give me more courage," he said.

Davion wants a bed to call his own and to be able to participate in school sports and clubs without having to move all the time when he changes foster homes.

He hopes his story will raise awareness for all foster children.

"I just want people to know that it's hard to be a foster kid. People sometimes don't know how hard it is and how much we try to do good."

When asked what it would mean to finally have a family, Davion said, "It will make me have more courage and it will make me look brighter and feel better in general."

"It's not really cool not to have anybody," he said. "I'm pretty happy and excited that people are calling and asking to talk to me and possibly be my family."

He also doesn't think it's important that he's going to be turning 18 in a few years and could legally be on his own. He's looking for life-long relationships.

"I just want people to love me for who I am and to grab me and keep me in their house and love me no matter what," he said.

For information concerning Davion Only go online to www.eckerd.org or call 1-866.233.0790.