Center’s New Director Moved By Kids’ Needs Dedicated To Helping Families Out Of Poverty

In six years, Kim Parker’s job title went from volunteer to director.

The 25-year-old woman now is running the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, one of Spokane’s best-known non-profit agencies helping the poor.

“The thing I admire about her is that she’s worked from the trenches up,” says Voncille Molett, president of the center’s governing board.

“She could very easily have gone somewhere else, but she chose to stay here. And that’s one of the things that I looked at as a board member. That shows dedication.”

The Sherman Avenue center provides after-school programs for children, plus food, clothing and budgeting classes to help families climb out of poverty.

Despite her youth, Parker is more than qualified for her new job, many say.

While working at the center, she earned a bachelor’s degree, then a master’s, in social work. Eventually, she wants to counsel children.

“When I started working here, I saw the needs were so many,” Parker says. “What really gets me is the children, their conditions, to see them come in and they haven’t eaten.”

Parker, who became director July 16, wants to make sure everyone who can use the center hears about it by continuing to spread the word through schools, social service agencies and the business community.

“We just try to get across that this is not just a black organization. They see Martin Luther King and think that’s all it is,” she says.

Valerie Marshall, who left as director earlier this year to work for the state Department of Children and Family Services, also started at the center as a volunteer.

Marshall later hired Parker.

“When I was director, she was the person behind the scenes,” Marshall says. “Kim is a very unique person in that she’s got a lot of qualifications a lot of people at her age don’t have.”

Those who know Parker say she’s a reserved, caring woman whose love of children is always evident.

Brenda Kane, who coordinates children’s services at the center, says Parker is less extroverted than Marshall.

“Kim is quiet,” Kane says. “She knows what she wants to do and she sets out to do it.”

Parker will have challenges, according to Marshall, who still serves as a center adviser.

For example, Marshall often had to explain that the center wasn’t a museum or civil rights organization, but a hands-on anti-poverty agency.

“It’s been a challenge keeping funding for Martin Luther King,” she says. “It’s been a challenge because of who we are as people of color.”

Marshall says minorities in Spokane sometimes don’t have access to those controlling the purse strings.

Still, Marshall is respected for what she was able to accomplish in her time at the helm, such as adding more programs for children, Kane says.

“Valerie, she was the builder of our foundation,” says Kane. “Kim is now the one who’s getting all the walls together.”

Kane expects Parker to be just as much of a leader as Marshall was.

In fact, Kane was inspired by Parker to continue her graduate work in early-childhood education.

“It really encouraged me to go on and get with the program,” says Kane, a former elementary school teacher in California. “I’d been putting it off for a long time.”

As a child, Parker traveled the world with her military family. She learned to adjust to life on Air Force bases from South Dakota to Belgium.

Daryl Parker remembers how his sister always wanted summer military jobs working at community centers and day cares.

“She loves kids,” says Daryl Parker, her twin brother, younger by three minutes. “She always babysitted, even for free.”

Daryl Parker, who works in human resources at Washington Water Power Co., says education was placed as a high priority for he, Kim and two brothers.

“That was expected of all of us, to go to school and learn as much as we could,” he says. “She’s really driven, really focused - more focused than I am.”

Parker says she always wanted a career that involved helping people.

“I just don’t want to see people fall through the cracks,” she says.

Now she’s eager to see how welfare reform impacts the center.

“If the changes are radical, we’ll have more families trying to meet their basic needs.”

How can people help?

Parker says it’s as simple as giving the center one hour of volunteer time, or inviting the children to visit a local business.

“So many of our kids, they like adults to come around,” the director says. “We have a lot of children here, and interacting with them will really pay off.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo