GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. — Amber Starr greeted Brea Collins at her front door Tuesday morning as if the two women were long-lost friends.
In reality, they’d just met — drawn together by an unimaginable tragedy that a Grain Valley family has tried to turn on its head.
Trent Starr died by suicide on New Year’s Day in 2022, but his spirit continues to make an impact through the random acts of kindness his family and friends do each year around Aug. 2 to mark his birthday.
Amber suspects Trent’s youth club wrestling coach was behind one of those random acts last weekend, paying for children’s birthday cakes awaiting pickup at a Walmart bakery in Blue Springs.
That surprise included a basketball-themed birthday cake for Collins’ son, which was accompanied by a note that read: “Paid for in memory of Trent Starr.”
“I was in shock for about 30 seconds, and then I just started bawling my eyes out,” Collins said. “... There's not a lot of kindness in this world, so I was in shock that somebody would actually do that.”
The Starr family relishes in the smattering of random acts of kindness in Trent’s memory. His sister, Allyson, has bought bouquets of flowers, penned notes with encouraging words and left them on random cars as her way to pay tribute to Trent’s legacy.
“Trent loved helping people — always,” Amber said. “If you called him and you were like, and he didn't even have to know you, and you were like, ‘I got a flat tire,’ he'd be like, ‘All right, I'll be there in five minutes.’”
That’s what the family hoped to carry forward after his death.
For Amber especially, the shock of losing Trent — a former star wrestler at Grain Valley with a love for fast cars, his pickup truck and the outdoors — still stings.
“It's almost like a dream,” she said. “... It's definitely been a very, very hard journey. It's hard every single day to wake up, get up, go to work, make dinner. It's hard on my kids; it's hard on his dad. But doing the things that for people that he loved, for things that he loved, has definitely helped in the healing process.”
Collins posted about her experience Sunday on Facebook, and the photo has received more than 1,300 reactions.
“I definitely told my family that this is what was happening,” she said. “... Once we sang happy birthday, I told everyone that the cake was bought on behalf of Trent, and we said happy birthday to Trent as well.”
Several people tagged Amber in Collins’ post, which is how she learned about it and how they first connected.
When Collins arrived Tuesday at Starr’s home, she had the empty cake box with the handwritten note on it.
“I just love that it touched someone else's heart like that,” Amber said. “It makes me so happy that he's remembered, that we're raising awareness, that his legacy, his honor, that we're just going to keep doing this. The more people who know about his story and can be a part of it, can spread it to someone else and touch them.”
His family started the Trent Starr Memorial Foundation in his honor after his death, providing gifts to other people in need or causes that were important to him.
The foundation’s next fundraiser — Trentapalooza, which features six local bands along with live and silent auctions — will take place from 1 p.m. to midnight on Sept. 20 at the Local Table and Bar, 511 N. Main St. in Grain Valley.
Tickets cost $10 and the music starts at 3 p.m.
Kindness, obviously, is encouraged.
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KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
