He was just 3 months old, Victor Sims says, when the state removed him and four of his siblings from their unstable home and put them in foster care.
For the next 11 years, he bounced from foster home to foster home – eight altogether – before he landed in the home of a loving couple in Winter Haven who eventually adopted him. They provided stability and encouragement through his teenage years, he says.
Victor Sims (left), his biological sister, Victoria (just behind him), and his five foster siblings were adopted by Violet and Ron Sims of Winter Haven.
Now 20, Sims is a senior psychology major at USF St. Petersburg with an ambitious goal: He wants to serve in the state House of Representatives.
On March 3, he filed to run as a Democratic candidate in District 39, which covers parts of Polk and Osceola counties.
It’s a long shot. Rep. Neil Combee, 56, the Republican incumbent, is a Polk County native who has already served four years in the House, the last two as deputy majority whip. According to his filings in the state Division of Elections, Combee has raised $53,905 for his campaign and spent $30,218.
But Sims says he is used to challenges. He wants to “break barriers and build futures” in his campaign, he said. “I’m a strong believer in God, and I think God will lead me to where he wants me to go next.”
As he moved from foster home to foster home, Sims says, the experience was often difficult.
“The constant moving was a huge problem for me because I would get close to the family and then leave,” he said. “It was difficult to go to school and wonder if the caseworker was going to pick you up and tell you that you’re no longer a part of that household.”
But Sims says he learned from the experience and wants to use it to help others. “I’ve lived with a lot of different families being in foster care,” he said. “I’ve seen multiple angles of life. That is something that most candidates don’t have.”
As a fourth grader, Sims already had a big smile.
Then he landed with Violet and Ron Sims, who have adopted seven children, including Victor and his biological sister, Victoria.
“I started only wanting two girls. I did adopt a girl, but then I asked the caseworker if she had family. Well, she had two brothers and I couldn’t just split them up,” said Violet Sims in an interview with the Crow’s Nest.
Raising Victor wasn’t easy at first, she said. He was a sensitive child who wept a lot. But he loved to sing gospel songs around the house, and after a year he began to open up. The Sims couple adopted him in 2007.
As he grew up, Mrs. Sims said, Victor proved to be a determined young man who knew what he wanted. That’s why she nominated him for the 2013 Outstanding Young Leader award from FosterClub, a national network for foster families. He traveled to Washington to receive it.
“Victor had a drive to do things,” Mrs. Sims said. “He liked to help people. He always said that foster children had a bad rep. That people treated foster kids different, and he wanted to change that.”
In 2014, Sims graduated from Chain of Lakes Collegiate High School and received an associate degree from Polk State College. While in high school he was student government president and a member of the National Honor Society.
At USF St. Petersburg, Sims has been Mr. USFSP, a student ambassador, and secretary of communications in student government. He ran unsuccessfully for vice president of student government last spring.
Earlier this year, he was in professor Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan’s Road to the White class and volunteered for the Hillary Clinton campaign in New Hampshire. He will graduate in May.
Education is a big plank in Sims’ platform. “My first thing to tackle is education,” he said. “I believe that is one of the most important things to make a society great, and figuring out how to make education available to everyone at an affordable rate.”
He plans on helping foundations like the Head Start Program, which offers education to young children from low-income families and helps prepare youngsters for kindergarten. His mother teaches in the program.
Sims says that having a relationship with the community is also important to him. It’s something he learned from fellow students of USFSP.
“Seeing students every single day, you build a relationship with them,” he said. “Having relationships with people is what we are missing between politicians and the community. They forget to come back and be a part of that engagement.”
He knows that his political challenge is daunting. And if he doesn’t win?
“I will find another challenge to go for,” he said. “I will come after the same seat in 2018.”
