Washington Holiday Angels: Victoria Clark

Victoria Clark has a lot of reasons to be sad. She was born to a teenage mother during the height of the District’s crack epidemic, Clark’s father got a life sentence for a drug charge shortly after she arrived in the world. She lived with various family members and other friends during her formative years and readily acknowledges that her parents weren’t the role models she needed them to be.

But instead of “succumbing to circumstances,” as she called it, 19-year-old Clark decided to use her life story to help a new generation of disenfranchised D.C. children.