Ken Trent Retiring As Head Of Volunteers Of America ‘People Need Help And They Should Be Helped,’ He Says
Christmas traditions at Ken Trent’s house have been a bit peculiar since he became head of the Spokane office of Volunteers of America in 1974.
That agency runs The Spokesman-Review’s Christmas Bureau. Almost every Christmas Eve, Trent’s telephone would ring with news of some family that had been left out.
The widowed father would rouse his three daughters from bed and drive to the darkened Christmas Bureau.
There they would comb the picked-over shelves for toys. Sometimes they would stop at a convenience store to buy food, too.
“Usually we would meet these poor people in a grocery store parking lot somewhere, where we would give them their Christmas presents,” said Julie Trent, now 33. “My dad just likes helping people.”
Hardly anyone ever found out about Trent’s Santa Claus impersonations. No one is surprised.
Trent, 66, retires today as head of one of Spokane’s largest non-profit agencies. The people left behind to do his work are wondering what other mysterious duties Trent has performed over the last two decades that have gone unnoticed.
That’s because Trent doesn’t talk much, especially about himself.
A former manager at U.S. Steel Corp., he has no formal training in social work. Trent accidently stumbled into non-profit work after his wife died from cancer, leaving him to raise 5-year-old twins and a 7-year-old. He quit his job, rather than move with the corporation.
The way he tells it, he remodeled the VOA’s kitchen when it started its meals-on-wheels program for the elderly and the agency offered him a job as director.
Others tell a different version. After doing the remodeling work, Trent stopped by on the first day of operation. Seeing that the person in charge was panicked, Trent stepped in and started assembling meals.
“He’s a doer, not a talker,” said Marilee Roloff, who replaces Trent as VOA director. “That’s what makes him so effective. A lot of us in this field are processors and consensus builders. There’s a lot of room for doers.”
Since that day, Trent has quietly managed the organization. VOA runs several apartment complexes for the mentally ill, chronically addicted and people with AIDS. The agency also runs Alexandria’s House for teenage mothers and Crosswalk, a school and shelter for street kids.
Trent was recently singled out among 9,000 VOA employees nationwide to receive the organization’s national leadership award in honor of his 22 years of service.
“He has an astonishing circle of admirers,” Roloff said. “Many of his best friends are people we call his clients.”
Trent rarely uses the word “client.” He refers to people as just that, people. It doesn’t matter if they are chronic alcoholics who spend all their money on booze or schizophrenics who report him to the FBI for embezzling from them.
“You have to take people for who they are and what their issues are and not expect them to always act in a manner that you would,” Trent said. “They’re not bad people, they’re good people. But some have these periods where they’re delusional. As you get to know them you don’t think too much about it.”
In addition to handling money for dozens of people who can’t manage their finances, Trent was one of the driving forces behind Crosswalk, founded in 1985.
His own experience as a parent created a soft spot in his heart for the children he sees come through that facility.
“Our kids - and we call them our kids - need a chance to work to whatever capability they have. They need to learn to live in a way that gives them meaning and purpose and is relatively safe,” he said. “This is their entryway into adulthood.”
As a boss, his experience as a single father makes him ideal when it comes to taking time off for family, said Roloff, who brought her children to work on occasion.
“He’s a pretty devoted daddy himself,” she said.
That was also by accident, Trent said. When his wife died, he never questioned that he would raise his daughters solo.
“That was a challenge,” he said. “Had I known, I’d seriously have thought of doing other things.”
Trent said the philosophy behind his life’s work is simple: “People need help and they should be helped. If you can help them in whatever way you can, you do it.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo