[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 24, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    TRIBUTE TO THE NEW MICHIGAN CHAPTER OF JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN AND 
                        DIRECTOR, CHIP ST. CLAIR

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOE KNOLLENBERG

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 24, 2005

  Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Speaker, today I join the people of the 9th 
Congressional District and the State of Michigan in announcing the 
opening of the Michigan Chapter of Justice for Children. JFC is the 
only nonprofit corporation formed to save at risk unprotected children 
who have been physically abused or neglected.
  Justice for Children intervenes on behalf of abused children when 
child protection agencies and courts fail to protect them. They help 
children whose cases have been closed by Children's Protective Services 
before help has been provided and have no Court Appointed Special 
Advocate or who even with CASA support, are on the verge of being sent 
back to an abusive home.
  Last year Mr. Chip St. Clair, a Rochester Hills resident, called the 
JFC National Office in Houston and said he wanted to make something 
good arise from his childhood of abuse and violence. Becoming a 
regional director for JFC fulfills that desire and the abused children 
of Michigan now have an ardent advocate to save them from the life he 
had to endure as a child.
  Mr. St. Clair was a victim of terrible abuse at the hands of his 
father--Michael Grant--who was a convicted child murderer. That murder 
took place in 1970 in Indiana. Grant escaped from the Indiana State 
Penitentiary in 1973 with the aid of the woman who would become Chip's 
mother. St. Clair was born in 1975 and did not discover that his father 
was a murderer until 1998 when he was 23 years old.
  ``I emptied the glass which was full of horror stories of my 
childhood and began filling that glass with nobility and honor. Joining 
JFC and helping abused children represents a major step in the Journey 
of Justice which began on that fateful day in 1998,'' said St. Clair.
  Justice for Children has been acclaimed by the American Bar 
Association, jurists from around the country, national television 
networks, news programs, and bipartisan congressional leaders for its 
work on behalf of abused and neglected children. Today we honor the 
Michigan Chapter of Justice for Children and Director, Chip St. Clair 
for their dedication to help abused and neglected children.

                          ____________________