He's displaced after the fire and trying to get back on his feet with some help from his coworkers at Geneo's Pizza downtown.
(ST. JOSEPH, Mo.) A new resident to St. Joseph lost almost everything in a fire on Wednesday at an apartment building on north 8th street.
"He just moved here roughly two months ago, two, three months ago to get a higher income he was over in Kansas. So he works down at the taco bell and he started a second job here because he wanted to go to the Bahamas. That was his dream, so he started saving money," coworker Gabriel Palmer said.
He's displaced after the fire and trying to get back on his feet with some help from his coworkers at Geneo's Pizza downtown.
"We called a bunch of our friends and some of our our customers stepped in. People brought by clothes and different housing items and money. Some of our employees were able to bring some clothes for him the day of. He came in yesterday afternoon with a black trash bag and that was all that he had left from his apartment," Palmer said.
Palmer works at Geneo's with his parents who are the owners, and he says all the employees chipped in to help and palmer started a GoFundMe.
"So anybody has anything or any extra money they want to donate, he'd really benefit from it," Palmer said.
The fire is still under investigation and it's not clear yet exactly how many people lived in the building, but there were 36 apartments. So the American Red Cross and United Way were prepared to support the victims.
"We had teams on site, the night of the fire, then we had volunteers staged at the red cross building there in St. Joe," executive director of American Red Cross of Kansas City said.
Both organizations are working on getting supplies, donations and more resources for all the residents that were displaced by the fire.
"So we're all staying in communication to make sure we're sharing those hygiene packs, snack items, foods, getting food pantry boxes, to easy locations if someone needs it," president of United Way of Greater St. Joseph Kylee Strough said.
And hopefully with enough money raised, Gabriel's coworker will be able to get a new place to live and maybe a trip to the Bahamas as well.
"Pretty traumatizing for him. He was inside whenever the fire struck. He's a super sweet kid, and he's just trying to just try and get it all together and figure out you know, where he wants to be in. And it was really sad that he had to endure that and we're hoping that he can make it through in a good amount of time," Palmer said.
If you would like to donate to the GoFundMe for the Geneo's employee, you can click on the link below.
