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August Mallory, Vendor of the Week.
Photo by J.P. Gritton |
A few years ago, after nearly a decade of service in the United States Navy, Vendor of the Week August Mallory got a job at a warehouse. It was tough work, strained muscles and forklifts and cursing and sweating. A job out of a Bukowski novel.
It paid the bills.
But one day, after a few mysterious meetings among slick-suited men in the back office, the warehouse closed.
“It was out of the blue,” remembers Mallory. He and 800 others had to move on. After a pit stop in North Carolina, Mallory headed for D.C., where he worked what odd jobs he could find, hopping all the while between shelters.
At roughly the same time, Chicago-based street paper StreetWise opened an office in D.C. — it proved to be a good fit.
“I wound up making a lot more than I did working day labor,” says Mallory. “I thought, ‘Hey, I’m good at this!’” So Mallory stuck with it, opened a bank account, and was eventually invited to participate in the National Coalition to End Homelessness’ Speaker’s Bureau. When D.C.’s next street paper, Street Sense, opened its doors, Mallory worked for them, too.
Street Sense’s director, Laura Osuri, used to get phone calls from some guy named Tim Harris…
Within a few years, knowing that he had a job waiting for him when he got there, Mallory headed for Seattle. These days, he divides his time between his home in Federal Way, Real Change, and earning his college degree.
“Support the paper,” says Mallory. “Help pull our vendors back on their feet.”
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