Today we’d like to introduce you to Vic Gipson.
Hi Vic, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Kind Human 4 Human Kind has a mission to help people help themselves through kindness with dignity. Our Kind Crew accomplishes this mission by running various community programs, free of charge.
Our Wheels of Kindness program provides bikes (and on rare occasions, trikes) to community members in need such as students, employees, and families who need transportation support. This program partners with Port Huron Police Department and Trev’s Mobile Bike Shed to recycle and restore bikes for safe riding.
Our Homeless Survival Bag program builds 100 backpacks every quarter. Survival bags consist of 38+ items, those items being a mix of hygiene products, snacks, first aid kits, seasonal gear, and safety supplies (flashlights, ponchos, masks, etc.). In addition to these bags, we often also offer sleeping bags, sleeping mats, coats, shoes, food, and other bonus supplies when donations allow. These bags are delivered to local encampments, handed out at soup kitchens, and shared for disbursement through our local shelters and first responders.
Our Community Giving Days occur 2-4 times a year, where we give away home essentials, hygiene products, holiday decor, age-appropriate toys & goodies, cosmetics, winter gear, and other necessities. These giving days pull hundreds of attendees, benefitting thousands of individuals in the community as a ripple.
Our team also takes on Emergency Case Referrals where we provide beds, home-sweet-home boxes of home furnishing supplies and daily necessities, and other items we can gather for folks in crisis.
Supplementally, our team celebrates World Kindness Day and completes 365 random acts of kindness across all surrounding counties, encouraging others to pass on the kindness.
Our organization began with one random act of kindness that has bloomed into thousands. We all truly believe that kindness is not extraordinary, it’s something that anyone can accomplish, even with something as simple as a smile to a stranger.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Life is full of challenges. Our team has faced many barriers in trying to teach others that kindness is not weakness. Kindness is powerful, and everyone deserves a hand up when they’re in darkness. We have been told by many of folks that what we do should be conditional, that it could be monetized, or that its performative. Our message to them is that kindness is not something transactional. Kind acts should be rooted in efforts that come from the heart, with no expectation of something in return.
Serving a community of mixed populations and experiences, the emotional toll of our work is also a large challenge. Every person we help or work with develops a strong relationship with our team rapidly, leading to topics of trauma, recovery, struggle, financial stress, environmental concern, safety, security, and other subjects to arise. Although our team is compassionate, empathetic, and packed with various folks experienced in mental health support training, these cases and stories can pile up quickly. Social service is a path of witnessing struggle, resilience, and recovery.
Laws and regulations also contribute heavily to our teams struggles. Many laws and policies that exist and continue to arise directly threaten the livelihood of the populations we serve. Our team does our best to advocate for the humanity component of all regulations, respecting our 501(C3) status, but making it known that our hearts lie with protecting our community members of ALL kinds. Witnessing the criminalization of homelessness in our country has been especially disappointing and concerning to our team, as being unhoused is an unfortunate level of crisis that any person can end up in at a moment’s notice. We will continue to support all of our community members and encourage them to know their rights. We will continue to supply folks with the necessities and resources they need to the best of our ability.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Personally, I am currently attending UofM’s accelerated MSW program to obtain my MSW in Social Work. I am interning with Professional Counseling Center in Port Huron, MI at the time of submitting this interview. I have spent my adolescence and early adulthood working in social work, human rights advocacy, first response, and peer education. I have worked with many of communities, cultures, and age groups, and I find great beauty in that area of my efforts. Humanity is so lucky to share such diversity and have the means to communicate in continuously advancing ways. My long-term career goal is to practice as a clinical social worker, with an eventual future potentially practicing emergency medicine (one step at a time!) When not working, I spend most days with my family (or rolling around at Bordertown Jiu Jitsu).
I believe the work I’ve been lucky enough to contribute to through Kind Human 4 Human Kind has allowed me to connect with many types of people, witness multitudes of circumstances at various stages of complexity and crisis. These experiences have informed me how many options there are to take during preventative care, interventions in live-crisis, responsiveness to post-crisis incidents, and practicing trauma-informed harm reduction at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. I take the most pride in reflecting on the lives we have changed through our programs. Witnessing someone go from living outside with nothing to moving into transitional housing with a job lined up in a years’ time is the most incredible proof I’ve seen that simple acts can change the trajectory of one’s survival (and happiness!)
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Kind Human 4 Human Kind serves all of St. Clair County (and on special occasions, counties beyond!), but many of our efforts have especially impacted Port Huron. Port Huron is such an incredible area, with immense beauty in nature and resilience in it’s occupants. I think Port Huron has so many lovely residents who are vocal and considerate about their needs, passions, and critiques. One thing that I wish the city of Port Huron would change is the way it treats the unhoused population. There are limited shelters, limited housing, and many unfortunate comments have been made by individuals with positions of power within the city. To love your city is to love your people.
To community members- Instead of judging someone for being unhoused, challenge yourself to ask what can you do for them. Can you have a polite conversation with them? Share a smile? Can you buy them a meal? Could you volunteer time with the local organizations working to feed and house folks in need? What choices are you making to keep yourself safe & sheltered?
To elected officials- What can you do to advocate for housing support? What unused land/buildings could be repurposed for shelter or camping? What can you do to fight for affordable healthcare and harm reduction programs to lessen the amount of folks falling into homelessness? What reflection can you engage in to address your personal bias and beliefs on our unhoused community members?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kindhuman4humankind.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kindhuman4humankind
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kh4hk
