Can I sue someone for defemation of character and loss of wages if I lost my job because of false accusations of sexual harassment?

I was working at the Salvation Army and had worked there for seven years, and loved my job! We became under new management, and I enjoyed working with the assistant manager as he had a good sense of humor, like myself, and if he flirted with me I would just laugh, because I thought that it was a joke, as he claimed to be a married man of god! But i was called into the office one day by the manager and the captain, and I thought that I had made a big mistake on the register, but instead i was handed only a piece paper and on it was written what I was accused of, and not even by whom! I was in such a state of shock, that immediately I started crying! I don’t even know what I might written on the piece of paper that was put in front of me! I went out of the office and coworkers of mine were asking what was wrong, but I was being shepherded out of the store like a criminal! It was said that I patted his butt and told him to take his clothes off, which believe me I never said! And, by the way, the store assistant manager was conviently not there that day! When my coworkers wanted to defend me, they were told to stay out of itt, which I believe was because of the accusations being false, so they feared for their own jobs! One of the employees that would be in the back of the store testing electronics said that he witnessed the flirting and maybe because I snubbed his advances he wanted to make me the guilty party, so he decided to accuse me, probably to safe guard his own job! I contacted someone in the offices in Grand Rapids who was very kind and looked into it for me, but she sadly contacted me right around Christmas that I truly was out of a job! Now i am having a really hard time trying to find a part time job, in part, because of my age of 62, and sometimes i am not sure if i should list the Salvation Army as a past employer, or try to explain a 7 year gap in employment? There is more of the story, but I am unable to afford an attorney, and it is even harder because I am disabled because I suffer from acute anxiety and major depressive disorder! Is there someone that can help me please and I would pay an attorney when I got my deserved lost wages! I am hanging like a thread here! If you cannot help me, can you please recommend some one who can?The reason that I am picking the case up again, is because I ran into a lady that used to work for us, and when I told her about what happened she seems to think that the man has a checkered past that I was not aware of, and I don’t know how I could access that information, so I am hopeful that I find someone that can help me