I’m fascinated by the intersection of film and social work. I’ve been acting since “I had the most convincing roar” and was cast in Beauty and the Beast. Life took my path and ran with it in directions where success seemed promising. This led a naive, and incredibly excited and ambitious, Sam down a path that suddenly became very dark. The film I’m now creating is about my traumatic experience. I hope to reach a unique population of SA victims while entertaining others into hearing my story.

If you want to see raw, human, emotion—really moving material—take a class in social work, volunteer, or join a group therapy session. There are so many stories out there that are not told and I know why: they’re not commercially pretty, or monetary. But I find these stories so beautiful and rich. The best performances I have seen have been speakers that come into my class and talk about their lives and answer the question, when life is no longer worth living, how does one keep living? And why?

With $25,000 I’d continue to pursue the intersection of social work and film. Most likely, a feature film. I’m nearly finished with my first film and have been using DaVinci Resolve to edit it. This film’s budget was mainly from working DoorDash in the past year. Between, budget to create films, researching through professional education in social work/volunteering, and marketing to get them out there on a large-scale, including fees for the festival run, $25,000 could go a long way.