[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 102 (Friday, July 28, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1595]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        RECOGNIZING NELL GRISSOM

                                 ______
                                 

                   HON. CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 28, 2006

  Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Speaker, today I want to share with this Congress 
the life and work of Nell Grissom at Wesley House in Meridian, 
Mississippi. She represents the best of Mississippi and demonstrates 
again and again, the power of faith, hope, and love.
  Nell was stricken with polio at the age of twelve and paralyzed from 
the neck down. Doctors said she would never walk or have children. For 
years she lived in a full-length steel brace from chin to hip. But she 
finished high school; she married, and has three children and two 
grandchildren. Faith, determination, and hard work gave her inner 
strength to match the steel of those braces. Strength to build, guide, 
and direct a mission that feeds, clothes, educates, counsels, reforms, 
and heals: touching over 33,000 people every year.
  In the mid-1960's, Wesley House Community Center in Meridian was 
about to close. Founded in 1904 by a group of churchwomen to bring hope 
into the lives of women and children living in poverty around a cotton 
mill, for sixty years, they held Bible classes and sewing lessons and 
distributed food and shoes and Christmas presents to the poor people in 
that neighborhood. Methodists operated Wesley House in a small frame 
cottage and staffed it with a missionary deaconess.
  By 1967, the church could no longer provide a deaconess and Nell 
Grissom, who was volunteer leader of the Youth Fellowship at Central 
Methodist Church, was asked to help keep the doors open until a 
qualified mission worker could be found. Now forty years later it is 
obvious to all that Nell Grissom was the mission worker they needed.
  Wesley House currently serves as the central hub for the regions 
Toys-for-Tots drive at Christmas. Nell Grissom has also turned Wesley 
House into a crisis center for local, regional, and state disasters. 
This past year Wesley House was instrumental in distributing aid to 
Hurricane Katrina victims.
  Years of service to thousands of people trapped in the vicious cycle 
of poverty, neglect, abuse, and crime, led Nell to open East Central 
Mississippi's first Sexual Assault Crisis Center in 1990. Almost 
overwhelmed by the response of hundreds of victims of sexual assault 
and abuse, Nell worked tirelessly. Counselors were employed and a 
volunteer crisis line response team was set up to counsel with victims 
at hospital emergency rooms and law enforcement facilities on a twenty-
four hour basis. Nell's efforts have expanded the Sexual Assault Crisis 
Center and Children's Advocacy Center at Wesley House to include a 
traveling counselor serving victims in five counties and abuse 
prevention programs in the public schools. Moving beyond direct 
services to victims of sexual assault and abuse, Nell Grissom expanded 
the Wesley House victims rights programs to include services to 
families of victims of homicide and other crimes.
  For over forty years now, Nell Grissom has led countless volunteers 
to build an agency that gives victims productive futures. Helping 
victims of poverty and neglect before they become victims of crime is a 
major focus of Nell Grissom's life. Every day she and her co-workers 
are salvaging lives from the mean streets, instilling the virtues of 
work, faith, and morality in those most vulnerable of our citizens. 
Nell retires in August and ends this chapter in Wesley House's history, 
but she does so with sadness and with joy. Sadness that she will not be 
guiding the great services that Wesley House provides, and joy because 
she knows that God has used her to touch the lives of countless people.
  Mr. Speaker, Nell Grissom could have rested on her laurels and 
retired years ago, yet she has kept working for over forty years as she 
still works late into the evening at Wesley House helping just one more 
victim with one more problem. The impact of Nell Grissom's service is 
reflected in the countless people from all walks of life who can 
testify about the healing Nell Grissom has brought to their lives and 
their families. She has made her community, her state, and her country 
a better place through her efforts and I am proud to call her a 
daughter of Mississippi.

              75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BOROUGH OF KENHORST

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JIM GERLACH

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 28, 2006

  Mr. GERLACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 75th 
anniversary of the Borough of Kenhorst in Berks County, Pennsylvania.
   The residents of Cumru Township, upset with what they described as 
an exorbitant streetlight tax, a lack of fire and police protection, 
and a lack of street improvement, decided to secede from the Township 
to create their own municipality, thereby resulting in the 
establishment of the Borough of Kenhorst nearly 75 years ago.
   Its name is of most interesting origins. Along New Holland Road to 
the south of the proposed borough was a large estate owned by the Horst 
family. Along Lancaster Avenue was a large farm operated by the Kendall 
family, also known as Kendall Park. Consequently, the founders decided 
to combine both names and Kenhorst Borough was thereby incorporated on 
August 25, 1931.
   The Borough remains largely residential, but has recently seen 
expansion along the two main throughways--New Holland Road and 
Lancaster Avenue--because of the community's outstanding beauty and 
quality of life. Today, the Borough is considered one of the premier 
communities in Berks County and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
   Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me today in honoring the 
Borough of Kenhorst on its 75th anniversary and recognizing the service 
of a multitude of citizens who worked tirelessly to establish, promote, 
and grow the Borough to become the exemplary community it is today.

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