Rosalind “Roz” Pichardo’s story is the kind that makes you want to fall on your knees, raise your hands to the skies, and implore the heavens for an answer.
For Pichardo, the answer is activism – and she’ll describe it Tuesday at Mission Story Slam #12, a first-person storytelling event meant to inspire kindness, empathy and activism.
“Sometimes you have to turn a trauma into power,” she said.
When Pichardo was a teenager, her ex-boyfriend threw her off an overpass. Miraculously, she survived. That same day, he fired multiple bullets at her as she walked home on Erie Avenue. Miraculously, he missed.
When she turned onto her street, she saw yellow crime scene tape everywhere. “I thought my family was dead,” she said. Instead, her new boyfriend, who had been waiting for her outside, was shot and killed.
A few years later, her twin sister, suffering from her own demons, killed herself. A dozen years after that, her brother was murdered.
And, just a few days ago, someone shot two men just down the street from Pichardo’s home in Kensington. One died there. Pichardo and others worked heroically and stopped the other man from bleeding to death.
Now Pichardo leads Operation Save Our City, which operates Sunshine House, a storefront on Kensington Avenue. The organization helps families of gun violence victims and teaches teenagers how to use tourniquets to stop bleeding and how to save people from drug overdoses. Meals, clothes and other help are available for the unhoused and addicted. Clerks at corner stores have been trained in lifesaving techniques and given emergency first-aid kits. (Pichardo was also a 2021 Billies Award nominee.)
“When you experience the loss, do something now,” she said. “Helping people, saving people, and loving people — all at the same time. That’s gratifying. And that’s how you are going to heal yourself.”
Pichardo will be one of 10 to 12 storytellers at Old City’s National Mechanics Bar on June 10. Each storyteller takes the stage for five minutes, connecting their personal stories with their organization’s mission, and tying them into the night’s theme, “The Time Is Now.”
Tuesday’s event will follow the typical story slam format. Organizers set the theme, curating a few speakers. Other speakers come from the audience. They show up, drop their names into the “Horn & Hardart Coffee Can of Destiny” in hopes of being selected in a random drawing.
A three-judge panel and the audience score the storytellers. A total of $350, in two cash prizes, is at stake.
How Mission Story Slam began
What makes Mission Story Slam different is its origin.
The idea came from David “Dave” Winston, a producer at PWPvideo, a Germantown company that creates videos for nonprofits and sustainable businesses.
In an earlier life, Winston had run a comedy club on Sansom Street and became acquainted with the idea of story slams – similar to stand-up comedy because stories are told, but not similar in how and why.
“I love telling stories and I love the environment of the story slam, which is so different from stand-up comedy. Stand-up is adversarial. The comedian is there to make the audience laugh. It’s rowdy,” he said, with a potential for catcalls and heckling. By contrast, the story-slam audience is “a very supportive and nurturing group. They want you to succeed.”
So Winston pitched the Mission Story Slam idea to his boss, Michael Schweisheimer, PWPvideo’s founder.
For marketing purposes, wouldn’t it make sense to spend more time with their clients, who tend to be interesting people and passionate about their work? And, on the side of giving back, maybe they could help those clients and others spread the word about their missions.
“We video all the stories, put them online, and we are creating free sharable content” for them, Winston said.
‘I’m in a position where I can help’
At one of the past Mission Story Slams, Germantown ceramic artist Karen Singer stood up to speak.
Singer’s story was riveting. She had been in an abusive marriage. But like many others in that situation, she denied its reality to herself, even as, in years of self-loathing, she criticized herself for tolerating the abuse.
Then, one day, she attended a meeting of Women In Transition (WIT), a Philadelphia nonprofit that helps people in domestic violence situations. She listened to stories from the others – women from all walks of life, from all races, and classes. They could have been telling her story.
“What I realized was that I had been negative to myself and that was part of what kept me trapped,” Singer said. She would have never criticized the women in that room as cowards and losers, yet that was the in-her-head way she described herself.
Singer told the audience that the realization was her turnaround moment. “I made a vow to respect myself and to stop beating myself up for this,” she said. With WIT’s help, she left her abuser, got a divorce, and built a new life with her son and a new husband.
That night, Singer’s story earned WIT a $250 cash prize. “I really hit it and I feel really good about it,” Singer said. “WIT gave me all this amazing support, therapy, etc., and now I’m in a position where I can help other people get this help.”
These days, Singer sits on WIT’s board and WIT uses the video of her story slam debut on social media, on its website, and in appeals to donors.
“It’s not a TED Talk. It’s not an elevator pitch,” Winston said. “It’s about them personally. It’s about what that particular person resonates with. Why is this person giving her life to fighting sexual abuse, or spousal abuse, or working for the environment, whatever their cause is, or housing or poverty? Why are they helping drug addicts? Why are they helping underserved communities?
“That’s the story we go after when we interview people for videos. That’s the heart of what motivates all of their activities,” he said. “That’s incredibly moving. It’s funny, it’s touching, and that’s the heart of good storytelling.”
FYI
Mission Story Slam, PWPvideo, Tuesday, June 10, National Mechanics Bar, 22 S. 3d St., Philadelphia. Doors open at 6 p.m., showtime at 7. Tickets are available online or at the door.
