Friday, January 28, 2011 12:00 am
PAUL RUHTER/Gazette Staff Agnes Samples, left, outside the St. Vincent de Paul charity office on Montana Avenue, is succeeding Harry Merchant as director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Billings.
Agnes Samples was attending services at St. Pius X Catholic Church when Harry Merchant, the executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Billings, announced that he was retiring.
As Samples recalled it, “I looked at my husband and said, 'What a great opportunity.'”Members of the society's board of directors evidently agreed with her because they selected her last month to succeed Merchant when he retires on Monday.
Merchant has headed the society in Billings since 1993, having worked before that as a private addictions counselor in training and development at St. Vincent Healthcare and as pastor at Little Flower Catholic Church. He plans to stay in Billings after his retirement.
“He really is the face of St. Vincent de Paul in Billings,” said Mary Jo Michels, president of the society's local board. She said Merchant has “a great spiritual presence” and is “really good about reaching out with a gentle heart.”She sees similar qualities in Samples. “She also has a great heart and the ability to reach out to people,” Michels said.
Samples came to Billings in 2004 to teach in the Department of Health and Human Performance at Montana State University Billings. She mostly taught health promotion classes, and part of her job was working to prepare student interns to work at organizations like St. Vincent de Paul.
“It was really a natural transition,” she said of succeeding Merchant — “just making my classroom larger, educating people in Billings about homelessness.”In addition to teaching at MSU Billings, Samples has been active in the Interfaith Hospitality Network, which involves local churches taking turns caring for homeless families, and she served on the Mayor's Committee on Homelessness.
Before moving to Billings, Samples taught public health courses at East Tennessee State University, where she also worked as a field coordinator and manager of the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association training center. She has a master's degree in public health and a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy analysis.
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul has 24 employees in Billings and an annual operating budget of about $900,000. Merchant said the Catholic lay organization receives no government funding.
About two-thirds of its revenues come from its thrift shops, one at 2624 Montana Ave. and the other at 1235 Grand Ave. The bulk of the organization's work consists of providing more than 800 families a month with food, clothing, rent or utility assistance and other services.
Merchant said proceeds from the thrift stores pay for all the society's overhead, so 100 percent of cash donations go directly to families in need. Clients are given vouchers to purchase clothing, furniture and other goods from the thrift stores, and separate vouchers to pick up food at the Billings Food Bank.
Merchant said the Food Bank used to deliver supplies to St. Vincent de Paul, which then distributed it to its clients, but when the Food Bank opened its new warehouse, that changed.
The new system gives St. Vincent de Paul clients access to a much wider selection of food, Merchant said, and it freed up so much room in the society's charity office that some remodeling is planned to increase office and laundry space. The society also plans to add some classroom space to offer instruction in financial management and similar subjects.
St. Vincent de Paul, using volunteers from parish conferences in Billings, already makes regular home visits to many of its client families, both to maintain closer ties with the people they help and to get a better idea of what their needs are.Another relatively new service is the Representative Payee Program, in which the society manages Social Security disability funds for more than 90 people unable to care for themselves.
Michels said Merchant informed the board of directors two years ago that he planned to retire in 2011, so there was plenty of time to prepare. She said she is excited about having Samples as the new director, but she will miss Merchant.
“He's been the heart and soul of our mission,” she said.
Contact Ed Kemmick at ekemmick@billingsgazette.com or 657-1293.
