Student Profile of Victoria Sanders
9/3/19
Victoria Sanders says the day she was born determined the course of her life. It was the day before U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The world, and especially the nation was transfixed with events and preoccupied with the news for the first several days, even weeks, of her life.
Born into a large family of thirteen children, the sixth of nine children still living, Victoria was the eighth of ten girls. Her parents both worked, her father now retired from Caterpillar and her mother almost always working for restaurants as a housekeeper.
The family had originated in Mississippi, where the first children were birthed at home, as per tradition there. From there, they moved to Chicago, then briefly to Rockford, then to Peoria shortly before Victoria’s birth. She has much more to say about her adult years and future goals than about her childhood, although she does describe her father as a “good provider He had to have a good job, with that many kids!”
She speaks of her future even before describing her past: “Writing and baking are two of my skills that are not hindered by vision or visual challenges…”
Victoria is legally blind, one would not even notice those challenges. She is a strikingly attractive woman, ageless, always smiling and cheerful, optimistic and encouraging toward others. She blends in well with other Illinois Central College students, except that she projects perhaps a slightly more professional attitude and appearance than the typical t-shirt and shorts-clad ones. Her disability, though it may limit her work options, does not define her—one has to get to know her fairly well to even be aware that macular degeneration limits her visual field, but certainly not her enthusiasm for life!
Victoria started out as a medical assistant in Peoria. Trained at Carthage College in Illinois, Victoria had done an externship at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria (UICOMP), but gradually began to notice that fading vision was interfering at work. She worked for the American Red Cross on their mobile unit during blood drives, where she habitually provided home-baked pie for blood donors. There she began to notice that the visual acuity needed for phlebotomy work (needle sticks) was problematic. She worked as a cook at the YMCA downtown (located in what is now occupied by the Dream Center) and worked at times as a teacher’s aide at the YMCA.
Pursuing her interests in the arts, Victoria moved on to acting and playwriting school at Columbia College in Chicago. There she studied voice techniques, acting, “dramaturgy” which includes the various aspects of production, and stage lighting.
Besides her interests in drama, Victoria’s artistry extends into the bakery business, where she still hopes to open her own chain of bakery shops, She had worked at Becky Bakery in Northwoods Mall in Peoria. She would like to have a start-up bakery in her own building in Peoria, where the kitchen would be on the lower level and she would live upstairs. We discussed the parallel dual politics-and-bakery career of former County Board member Rachel Parker, now Peoria County Clerk, who operates Sweet Cakes by Rachel.
Victoria also speaks of opening a second bakery near the Riverfront in Peoria, or in a high traffic area. She has attended workshops on business start-ups through the Peoria NEXT program at Bradley University, toward that end. She retains her professional license for baking, which is renewed every five years. One of her goals is a mobile sales venue at festivals.
When asked to define herself in just a couple of words, Victoria said, with little or no hesitation, “DETERMINED VICTOR!”