Occupy Wall Street Almost Broke

With camp gone, so are donations
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 17, 2012 2:54 PM CST
Occupy Wall Street Almost Broke
Participants, including Occupy Wall Street protesters, march and take part in a candlelight vigil to honor Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in New York.   (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

It turns out Occupy Wall Street isn't great with money. The protest movement raised $700,000 last fall, but now all but $170,000 of that is gone, the Wall Street Journal reports. And now that protesters been evicted from Zuccotti Park and aren't garnering media coverage anymore, donations have slowed to a crawl. What was all that money spent on? Mostly necessary things, like renting a U-Haul to carry hundreds of pounds of dirty laundry, or food for occupiers, though some other expenses have raised eyebrows.

Some, for example, questioned the $1,101 spent on homeopathic medicines, or the couple hundred spent for tobacco and rolling paper. "You may not like it, but it was voted on by the General Assembly," says one member of Occupy's accounting group. Now, that assembly is debating whether it should try fundraising, something some protesters oppose. "There's a trap," one reasons, "that the mission becomes more about sustaining the organization than its message." (Click to read how the group was looking to hire an accountant.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X