Thieves steal food truck from North Fondren business owner who built the truck to cope with her mom’s death

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A number of businesses off Meadowbrook Road in Jackson have fallen victim to theft recently.

The owner of Soul Wired Café, Stacey Winters, said she’s seen some businesses move elsewhere because of the crime.

When Winters got her stimulus check last summer, she put all of it toward building a food truck. But just last week, her vegan pop-up became the latest in the North Fondren area to be hit by thieves when her food truck was stolen.

“I went and got my friend to weld the frame, and I literally built that food truck with scrap wood,” Winters said. “There was some 100-year-old tin on it from an old house down in Ethel where I’m from.”

Winters said she used the project as a coping mechanism after her mom died from stage-four lung cancer.

“After being a caregiver for three years, all of a sudden, I didn’t have anybody to take care of anymore,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I built that to really heal myself and to give me something to clear my mind.”

She hoped to use the truck as an additional source of income, but after spending over a month building it, she never even got the chance to put it to use.

“They don’t understand that I built that with my hands,” Winters said. “I scrapped wood to make it, and it was made without me hurting anyone.”

Winters said four or five other business owners in the area had their stores recently broken into as well.

“Catalytic converters, trailers, different things have been stolen,” she said. “It’s almost like people are trying to run us out.”

The owner of Glass Plus declined to speak on camera but shared surveillance photos of when his business was broken into three years ago.

He said over the phone that the Jackson Police Department came by when it first happened but never followed back up.

“What I’d like to see is a bigger police presence over here in this area because I don’t think anybody is paying attention to the issue that’s happening,” she said. “It’s affecting not just my business, but other businesses outside of me.”

As Winters sees the city of Jackson struggle with crime, she said it’s businesses like hers that could help revive certain areas of the city.

That’s why she said she has no intention of leaving.

Winters is currently working with JPD to find her food truck, but if it isn’t found, she started a GoFundMe to help her pay for a new one.

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