Harger: After a heartbreaking week, a Renton cop, local veterans, and a boy’s first bus ride

It’s been a tough 24 hours in the news. The heartbreak in Bend reminds us how senseless and unsettling this life can feel at times. And how vulnerable kids can be.

When you hear about terrible things happening, especially to children, it’s easy to slide into despair. I’m not going to tell you those feelings are wrong. They’re real, and they’re human.

But there’s hope. There are good people in this world, and plenty of them live right here.

Many of you know the boy in the tent off Aurora. You’ve followed him since December. This is where hope comes in, for him, for his mom, and for the group helping them both get on the path to healing.

The boy in the tent off Aurora

A quick catch-up. Kristine Moreland and her nonprofit, The More We Love, never gave up on that boy or his mom after my story last December. His mom was trapped in a cycle of addiction, abuse, and trafficking, and they were living in a tent under terrible conditions. When I first reported that story, I felt despair. I didn’t know who, if anybody, was listening. Somebody was. A police officer.

A few weeks later, when the mom and the boy showed up at a hospital in chaos, that cop knew to call Kristine.

It’s been a long road. Mom is deep into recovery now. The boy turned 10, and last month he walked into a classroom for the first time in his life. When I ran into Kristine last week, she told me he’d just ridden a bus for the first time.

Many people helped get him on that bus. Most of them you’ll never hear about.

A Renton police officer and a broken projector

Kristine met Lacey, a Renton police officer, when The More We Love trained the Renton Police Department on human trafficking.

Kristine wrote on X, “I swear this woman never stops thinking about how she can support us.”

When the city was getting rid of an old projector, Lacey thought of movie nights for the women and kids at The More We Love. She worked through city channels to get it donated. On delivery day, she dropped it.

Kristine wrote, “She called me almost in tears.”

So Lacey took the broken projector to the department’s IT office to see if anyone could save it. That’s where a guy named Prium came in. The projector was a goner, but Prium had one at home, left over from COVID. He and his wife gave it to The More We Love, along with a nice little note. Theirs was nicer than the original.

Kristine said she stood in the middle of a police department IT office, fighting back tears over a projector.

Prium could have said it couldn’t be fixed and gone back to work. Now women who fought their way out of unimaginable situations get to sit with their kids, laugh, and watch a movie.

Renton VFW Post 1263 veterans pass it on

Then Renton did it again. Officer Smith called Kristine to say another officer, Eli, had a gift. Veterans at Renton VFW Post 1263 had given the department a stack of move-in buckets packed with household essentials. Smith and Eli thought of The More We Love. Those buckets now go to women moving into homes of their own.

Renton police don’t have to do any of this. Their officers spend their shifts going from one crisis to the next. They’ve seen what The More We Love does, getting people into recovery and onto a real path out, and they decided it was worth their time.

Good people doing quiet work in King County

Last month, King County picked The More We Love’s Pathways Inn for part of the region’s federal funding request. If HUD says yes, it could mean $3.7 million to take in more women and children.

That’s the big news. The small news is what gives me hope. An officer who wouldn’t let a dropped projector be the end of it. A guy in IT who went home and found a better one. Veterans who filled buckets for strangers. A mom who chose recovery. A 10-year-old brave enough to get on a bus.

Kristine ends every social media post the same way: Be someone’s constant.

Around here, a lot of people already are.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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