Hello friends! I’m running this fundraiser to help out your friend and mine, Jordan Brown, who has had a rough year. He’s been hired at the Safeway deli, and will be in the clear after a couple of paychecks, but needs our community support to get back on his feet. His bank account is overdrawn, his credit card is about to go to collections, his phone service has been shut off, his rent is due. After nearly a year without physical contact, he's just stoked he gets to hold his daughter's hand again. These supervised visits cost $300 a month.
Jordan is a neurodivergent writer and artist. As we all know, writing and art and occasional adjunct teaching gigs don’t pay a living wage! Jordan has been representing himself in court to work out co-parenting arrangements with his child’s mother, which has taken a ton of time and energy to do without a lawyer on a very low income. His last job was interrupted by these demands. In the meantime, Jordan chose to complete 48 hours of parenting classes through Spokane’s Fatherhood Initiative and continues to stay involved with a six-month commitment to regular group meetings with a counselor. He has also been attending the Parenting Wisely Workshop. He is now able to have supervised in-person visits with his daughter, Thomasin, twice a month, but due to the privatization of social services, these cost $150 per visit. Jordan always wanted to be a father, and his number one priority has always been staying as close as possible to Thomasin, which means staying in Spokane.
Our donations will pay for March and April rent, one month of supervised visitations with his daughter, pay off his utility, phone, and internet bills, a month’s bus pass so he can get to work, and go towards groceries not covered by EBT, like soap, TP, cat care, laundry. Any additional funds will be used to finance his barbering program at The Paul Mitchell School, which he hopes to begin this spring, and to support his daughter. Jordan is grateful for all the support he’s already received, and he is utilizing all the resources Spokane and Washington state have to offer, and he's sold his valuable record, Criterion Collection, and T-shirt collections.
If you know Jordan from the EWU MFA in Spokane, you’ve been charmed by his stories and poems and conversations on the bus, benefitted from his careful feedback, and appreciated how he kept class discussions rolling. If you know Jordan from Oshkosh, you know him as a punk with a heart of gold who published lit mags and played in bands. Once Jordan’s immediate needs for housing and necessities are met, he will be able to get back to his life as an artist, musician, and indie publisher, and his future career as a barber. In the meantime, he’s excited to have a secure and stable job that feels community oriented, at Safeway.
Jordan is one of the most optimistic people I know, which is one of the reasons it took him so long to ask for help. He never stops believing everything is going to work out, but he’s on the edge here. Any one of us in could be in his position with a few things going wrong. Bootstraps are a myth, and those of us the precariat class know how little money is needed to make a huge difference. Jordan only needs $3,000 to get through this rough patch, and I know we can pull it together.
All donations will be received with deepest gratitude! Even $5, even $1. Other ways to connect with Jordan and see what he’s been working on are through his Substack, Bandcamp, or YouTube channel.
In solidarity!
- Liina
Organizer
