Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Nefflen.
Hi Victoria, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
My name is Victoria, though most people call me Tori. I’m the current Director of Communications and former Baltimore Director of Hunger Relief at So What Else, a local nonprofit fighting to provide resources to underserved communities across Maryland and beyond. But what many don’t realize is that I’m also a cancer and stem cell transplant survivor.
2020 was a tough year for me. I was finishing my final semester at the University of Maryland when Covid hit and I was forced to move home. After graduating (via Zoom) I decided to take the next year off and commit myself to community service, to give back to a world that was dealing with so much. I was over the moon when I was accepted into AmeriCorps NCCC as a Unit Support Team leader, and moved to Iowa in July 2020 to begin training for my service year. Things had just begun to look up after an otherwise bleak year, and then the unimaginable struck: I was diagnosed with late-stage Myelofibrosis, a blood cancer for which the only cure would be a risky stem cell transplant.
I felt like my world was ending all over again. Once again I was forced to move back home, abandoning yet another life I had created for myself, to begin treatment at Johns Hopkins. I went from clearing trees after an inland hurricane to sitting in a hospital bed receiving round after round of chemo. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me.
On April 7th, 2021 I was finally able to head to transplant after discovering my sister, Jessica, was a perfect donor match, and spent the next few months in recovery as my bone marrow worked to produce all new cells from scratch. It was a long and arduous process, but one that taught me valuable lessons in patience, humility, and the power of community. It was only thanks to the incredible village behind me that I could afford treatment at all, crowdfunding $20,000 on GoFundMe to cover the cost of the procedure, and it is through this process that I learned just how much love and light I am surrounded by.
Today, I am fortunate to call myself a survivor, having been in remission for almost 3 years now, and have made it my life’s mission to advocate for and help others wherever and whenever I can. It’s not every day that you get a second chance at life, and I’m using mine to make the lives of others a little bit better. Immediately after the transplant, I got involved in volunteering and organizing. I hosted a marrow registry drive, encouraging 120 people to sign up for the National Marrow Donor Program with Be The Match. I volunteered on my hospital’s Patient and Family Advisory Council and worked with End Medical Debt MD to advocate for better policies for patients across Maryland. Today, I am the patient representative on the MD State Council on Cancer Control and use my voice and my platform to advocate for several other issues close to my heart.
It’s the combination of these experiences, and these tragedies, that have led me to my current work at So What Else today. Cancer affects lower-income and people of color the hardest, many of whom are both more at risk and yet less likely to have access to treatment. Being able to work at an organization like So What Else, providing necessities to the people in my city who are struggling in the ways that I have, struggling with cancer, but without access to the privileges and support I’d had, is my way of paying it forward with this new life I’ve been given.
Despite the setbacks I’d faced, despite the nearly 2 years I had to take off for Covid and my health, I’m still standing here today, years later, in my dream position doing meaningful work. While I recognize not everyone can or should have to endure what I have, I am grateful for everything that has happened to me and where this journey has taken me. I am more in touch with myself, my values, and my purpose as a result. I wouldn’t be where I am today without this transformative experience.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One of the toughest challenges I faced after my transplant was finding an employer that would work with me at all. In October of 2021, I was finally returning to my old self but still had a temperamental new body and plenty of medical appointments holding me back.
I needed to get back on my feet and hoped to start working again, but I struggled to find an opportunity that would work with my constantly changing medical schedule and weakened immune system. Many employers wouldn’t even give me a chance due to the unexplained gap in my resume due to treatment, and I couldn’t explain it was due to cancer if I never got the chance to interview in the first place. By December, I was beginning to lose hope.
But just when it felt I would have to wait until the following year, So What Else took a chance on me. They worked with my precarious health status, around my appointments, and helped me to get back on my feet. Lifting boxes, and delivering food, all helped me to rebuild my strength. And as I got better, I grew at So What Else, contributing more to the organization and being promoted as a result. That’s why I’ll always have a special place in my heart for this nonprofit because they lifted me when no one else would.
We’ve been impressed with So What Else Inc., but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
So What Else was founded over 14 years ago after co-founders Bob and Dave were moved by their experiences volunteering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
At first, we were just a small nonprofit based in Montgomery County, and our primary focus was on providing after-school programming and service opportunities to underserved students – believing that children held the key to creating a better future. However, as time went on and needs changed, we began to expand our services to support clients with free food, clothing, household goods, and more, while also expanding our geographic reach to PG County, Frederick County, Washington, DC, and of course, Baltimore, Maryland.
Our story in Baltimore begins in 2014. Like the rest of the organization at the time, our work focused on providing students, primarily in West Baltimore, with after-school programming, summer camps, and volunteer programs to help enrich their minds and provide them with a haven after schools let out. But things began to shift radically in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Across So What Else, students were locked down at home and our programs were temporarily shut down, but we knew our clients, our learners, were struggling beyond measure. We could have paused other organizations, and waited to become active again after the world opened back up, but we couldn’t stand idly by while the community we’d built faced its greatest challenge yet. Instead of missing a beat, we asked what we always do: what else can we do to help? And the resounding answer we heard from our students was food.
So to tackle hunger as a result of the pandemic, we began our meager hunger relief program, recovering food from local grocery stores, such as Whole Foods and Trader Joes’, and redistributing it to our students and families in need. But what we found in the process was that hunger across all So What Else chapters, all locations, but especially in Baltimore, was much more pervasive than we’d ever imagined, and much more systemic than just the pandemic. Suddenly we had hundreds of families, and then thousands, asking us for food. So once again we took a leap and scaled up, recognizing the need for this work beyond the pandemic, beyond the world opening back up, and began recovering more food and feeding more communities than ever before.
Today So What Else is one of the largest food providers in all of Maryland, recovering at least 300,000 pounds of food a week which would have otherwise gone into a landfill, saving our planet and ending hunger all at once. In Baltimore, our hunger relief operation has always been predominately mobile to make our food as accessible as we can. As of January 2024, we regularly deliver food to over 17 locations across the city including Highlandtown, Carrollton Ridge, Hamilton, Penn North, Sandtown, Waverly, and more, while supporting many others on an ad hoc basis. We host several free food distributions throughout the week, setting up tables on street corners for those in need to come and take what they need. As of 2022, we now operate a resource center and pantry at 424 S Pulaski St, Baltimore, MD (on the Ashton Street side) where we give out clothing, furniture, and diapers, in addition to shelf-stable food items.
In Baltimore, we recognize that it’s not our place to reinvent the wheel, but rather, to support the organizations on the ground that know their communities the best. Our work is done entirely in tandem with local churches, schools, and neighborhood centers in tune with the pulse of their area. Instead of inserting ourselves where we are not needed or wanted, we wait for organizations to call us in, only ever delivering to the places and people who ask for our support. At our core, we are a resource provider, and by working with fantastic organizations such as Love & Cornbread, Comite Latino, Salem Methodist Church, the St. Francis Neighborhood Center, The Food Project, UMBC Retriever Essentials, Thread, Kindness Connected, Standing Strong Mentoring Program, and more, we can effectively build a coalition of organizations working together to end hunger while meeting Baltimore residents where they’re at.
While we are now most known for our hunger relief work, we still host youth programs and volunteer projects across Baltimore, most notably with For My Kidz and The Food Project. It’s been an honor to serve Baltimore and we can’t wait to find new and better ways to support our partners and clients in 2024!
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
While we’ve grown a lot over the last few years we are always in need of volunteers to help support our critical work.
If readers are interested in giving back this year, we hope they will consider volunteering with us at So What Else. We have opportunities to serve at one of our weekly food distributions, as well as in our Resource Center. To learn more and get involved, go to http://baltimore.sowhatelse.volunteerhub.com/.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sowhatelse.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sowhatelsehelps/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SoWhatElseHelps/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/so-what-else/
