With her sweet sauce, a sweet success story

Watching Vicie Williams pour her fruit-flavored barbecue sauces over savory meatballs at the St. Louis Park Byerly's, I resisted distracting her to run off with the whole cart.

I also resisted pulling lunch-hour shoppers aside to say, "You have no idea how far she's come."

Williams' story is the stuff that dreams and "Oprah" episodes are made of.

Abused by her stepfather, pregnant at 12, Williams dropped out of seventh grade and ran away to Florida. By 20, she was the mother of three. She knew crack and homelessness and, after one of her two sons was killed in gun violence, hopelessness, too. She said she never felt freer than during her two stints in prison.

It's fair to say that Williams' stunning turnaround is due largely to others. To a judge who told her, "You don't need prison. You need direction." To business mentors, social services providers and family. Certainly to her faith.

But the biggest driver in Williams' life is Williams herself. "I had a dream, a goal, but I couldn't see it," she said. "I didn't have the vision yet."

Sitting last week in the upstairs office of her north Minneapolis home, tears flow as she covers her face with her hands. "Look at me. Look. At. Me," she said, pointing to a wall plaque honoring her as Neighborhood Development Center 2010 Small Business of the Year. There's not an ounce of bravado in her words.

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