Sue Vicory - The Power of One
Getting Involved in Community
Photograph by Carrie Brandon.
Voices and footsteps collect in a house in the same way that knick-knacks fill space on countertops and shelves. Small conversations between sisters, their raging arguments and foot-creaking hardwood floors in the hall fill space, however minimal it might be. When they are gone, the weight lifts and somehow the rooms seem lighter.
Eight years ago, Sue Vicory found her home empty after her two daughters left for college. At 47, she’d worked the last twenty years in her family’s 100-year old business in Nevada, Missouri, a company that produced pressed tin ceilings from the turn of the century that are now popular trimmings in hotels and bar establishments.
She decided to follow the passion she held for filmmaking after realizing she’d become a “movie addict,” spending significant time in theaters for thirty years. So Vicory left for film school in New York City to study documentary filmmaking and, upon graduation, decided her work should center on a cause, which would be telling the stories of America’s homeless.
Photograph by Jay Vicory.
Three years later, she’d captured more than forty hours of footage in 15 cities, from Seattle to Harlem. The result was her debut documentary film entitled Homelessness and the Power of One. The film’s title was based on a recurring theme that her interviews with the homeless and the people who were positive influences on their lives – the power of one person can affect change in someone’s life.
Sue and Carolyn. Photograph by Jay Vicory.
“Going through life is really about learning and educating and being alive in the process,” Vicory says. “To me, that’s where I find my passion meets up and where the adventure is for me.”
Her original 10-minute film has since raised more than $200,000 for homeless shelters, but it has also sparked a new movement. On Sept. 11, Vicory will begin a pilgrimage across the nation to call attention to the importance of getting involved in community. Her goal, through an interactive website, is nothing shorter than seeing every American – more than 305 million people – join the Power of One movement.
Traveling with a small crew for nine months, Vicory will document her speaking engagements at schools, community organizations, corporations, and community-based activities encountered on the road. She plans to post blog entries and upload video clips. Users will be able to track her progress on a web-based map that will follow the crew’s route. And for a $1 donation, her followers can become members of the My Power of One. New members will be collected in a database until every citizen in the United States has joined. They will also have the chance to sign the My Power of One mobile that they take on the road.
Photograph by Carrie Brandon.
“It’s kind of crazy how the universe works sometimes, but if you’re really paying attention, you realize how significant you are crossing other people’s paths. If you’re listening and you’re alert and you realize that we connect everyday with so many people, we have the opportunities to leave either positive impacts or negative impacts at every glance, at every word that comes out of our mouths.”
Footage from the pilgrimage will also be filmed for future book and theatrical releases. Despite the multi-tiered approach to broadcasting her message, Vicory’s objective is simple: to inspire individuals to impact others in a positive way.
Vicory is not alone in her unusually strong commitment to fighting homelessness. In fact, during the production of her documentary, she met Beth Reed, a Harlem-based writer who’d helped many former crack heads and homeless people turn their lives around. In the early 1990s, Reed made daily visits on her bicycle to an abandoned grocery story not far from her Harlem apartment where homeless people had holed up. She went everyday, befriended a man who was influential in the group and he eventually asked Reed to help him with his crack addiction. His striking turnaround caused others in the group to follow Reed. Later, she started her own organization for the homeless and drug-addicted, called El Guapo.
Reed and Vicory still talk often about their organizational missions. Reed said the passion she and Vicory share goes beyond merely wanting to do good deeds.
“For me, it’s a sense of wanting to embrace all the experiences of the world,” Reed says. “Of course, I do have a sense of wanting to understand, but it’s not like wanting to help them with what I’ve learned. ‘Help’ sounds so patronizing and I’ve never found (the experience) patronizing. I’m learning from my supportiveness and giving a whole lot back. It’s an embracing of humanity and a sense of adventure. There’s always a sense that good things can happen.”
Building an audience has so far not proven to be an obstacle for Vicory. She’s been able to capture the attention of the homeless and the addicted, to tell their stories and to encourage them to better themselves. She’s encouraged everyday people who had given up on those who have given up on themselves to commit time, money and belief to a portion of the population that is often ignored or shunned. Those people in the sleepy suburban houses or who turn their heads from the destitute kneeling on street corners will make commitments they never expected to. Comparatively, they will be Vicory’s easiest crowd.
For more information, visit www.mypowerofone.org.
Kevin Kuzma is a freelance writer and public relations spokesperson. His feature writing, essays and short stories have appeared in The Kansas City Star, Urban Times, Ink Magazine and Fatherville.com, an online forum for fathers. He is Manager of Publications and Public Relations for PlattForm, a Kansas City-based advertising firm specializing in higher education.
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