Jessica Dunkins, 29, woke up Tuesday to find out she no longer had a job.
It happened abruptly. On Monday evening, a grand jury in Clayton, Missouri chose not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the August 9 killing of Michael Brown. As demonstrators converged on the quiet suburb of Ferguson, a few started smashing windows, and a long stretch of West Florissant Avenue was soon engulfed in flames.
Dunkins got a call that night from her boss at the Prime Beauty Supply store. “People are trying to break in,” he told her. That was the last thing she heard, until she walked to the corner of Florissant and Chambers the next morning and found this where her job used to be:
“I don’t have time for shit like this,” she told Mic. “This is so disrespectful to the Mike Brown family … It’s not right, it’s not right.”
Tears streamed down her face as she spoke. Her hands quivered when she asked to borrow an extra pair of gloves. “Who all’s going to help with some money so I can pay my rent?” she went on. “[Wilson’s] still not going to jail … and [now] I don’t have no job.”
There are hundred of stories like this in Ferguson this week. All of them are heartbreaking, and all elicit wishes that the verdict had come down differently. But as anticipation turned into devastation on Monday night, the media’s fixation on looting, rioting and destruction left little room for what’s really been happening in Ferguson, since long before the CNN vans showed up.
Here’s what the media isn’t telling you about the protests in Ferguson
does anyone know of a fund that can help people in this situation
This is a broader fund by the United Way of St. Louis for the Ferguson community:
http://www.stl.unitedway.org/helpingferguson/
They have held a resource center for “help with basic needs to prevent homelessness. This included case management, utility assistance, rent/mortgage assistance, and transportation based on specific criteria determined by St. Louis County”