stclairbutterflyfoundation.org http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org Tue, 15 May 2012 14:28:42 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/2011/11/374/ http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/2011/11/374/#comments Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:11:42 +0000 Chip St. Clair http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/?p=374

Gerry Smith| Oct 13, 2011 5:53 PM EDT

 

Huffington Post

Family Secrets: Parents Prey On Children’s Identities As Victims Stay Silent

 

A Family Secret

Parents use their children’s Social Security numbers for a variety of reasons. Some use them to get jobs because they have felony convictions on their records. Others use them to apply for credit cards and utilities because their own credit is tarnished.

Last April, Maryland resident Jimmy Louis Craighead, 40, was convicted of stealing the identities of his three children — ages 6, 4 and 2. He told a judge he and his wife were not able to get credit in their own names, so they used their children’s names to get money for food, fuel and other necessities, according to the Carroll County Times.

“They have maxed out their ability to get credit, so they borrow their child’s thinking, ‘Oh, it’s okay. I’ll pay all the bills so by the
time they turn 18, they’ll have great credit,’” Linda Foley, co-founder of ID Theft Info Source and an expert on child identity theft, said at a conference in July. “Well, they haven’t unlearned the bad behaviors that got them in debt in the first place, so at 18, the child ends up in debt.”

That debt can take years to remove from a credit report. When Chip St. Clair was 15, his parents stole his identity to take out nearly $50,000 in student loans, utilities, apartment leases and car loans over the course of three years, he said. He didn’t find out until 1998, when he was 22 and his father was charged with escaping from an Indiana state prison in the 1970s.

He also learned that his father, who went by the name David St. Clair, was actually Michael Dean Grant, a convicted child killer. Grant had used Chip’s Social Security number to create a new identity.

After his father’s arrest in 1998, Chip’s mother wrote a letter for her son to give to his creditors. Written in cursive on stationery with a brown stuffed bear, the letter began “To Whom It May Concern: I am writing
this letter in hopes it will straighten out my son’s credit and financial problems.”

It continued: “Chip is trying to regroup and make something of himself and all this from the past is holding him back. … He should not be held accountable for the sins of his father. … Please try to have compassion for Chip’s situation and help him clear his good name.”

Now 36 and a resident of Rochester, Mich., St. Clair said he has spent the last decade trying to remove fraudulent charges from his credit report while paying high interest rates on loans because of his poor credit. He has still not been able to erase student loans that his parents took out in his name, he said. In October, he tried to open a utility account, but was told he had an outstanding balance of $500 from an address where his parents lived 20 years ago.

“Your credit is your lifeline to society,” St. Clair told The Huffington Post. “When it’s stolen from you, it creates so many problems in your life. It still haunts me to this day.”

Chip St. Clair (left) says his parents stole his identity when he was a child.

———————————————————-

 

Plex Systems, Inc. Receives Award from St. Clair Butterfly Foundation

AUBURN HILLS, Mich.,
May 19, 2011 — Plex Systems, Inc., provider of Plex Online, Cloud ERP for manufacturing, today announced it
has been named the recipient of the inaugural Corporate Achievement Award from the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation. The award will be presented to Plex Systems at the annual Taking Flight fundraising gala on Saturday, May 21st at Planterra in West Bloomfield, Mich.

Each year the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation presents a Lifetime Achievement Award to a member of the community at the annual gala. Since 2007, the board of directors for the St. Clair Butterfly foundation has been considering an award of equivalent recognition to a corporate entity at the gala. They have been seeking a company
in the community that “showed a dedication and compassion to helping its neighbors, as well as a deep commitment to making a difference”.

They have chosen Plex Systems as the first recipient of the annual award. The board has also voted to name this honor to future corporate entities the “Plex” Award.

“It is a rare kind of commitment in today’s corporate world of the time, money and other resources that Plex Systems has provided,” said St. Clair Butterfly Foundation Executive Director Chip St. Clair. “They have truly set the bar by which all future recipients will be measured. It is a testament of the generosity and enlightened approach to corporate citizenship that makes Plex Systems a company to emulate.”

“We are humbled and honored to receive this award,” said Plex Systems CEO and President Mark Symonds. “We are so impressed at the programs provided by the Foundation and thrilled to be contributing to the healing and positive changes they bring to so many people.”

St. Clair Butterfly Foundation

Founded in 2007 by Chip and Lisa St. Clair and based upon his bestselling memoir The Butterfly Garden, the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation utilizes the power of creative arts, literature, and overall well-being programs to impact the lives of children facing adversity. Art and music programs, nutrition, gardening, yoga, stress management, and even book clubs provide creative outlets for children and teens whose backgrounds vary from abuse to the sudden death of a parent or loved one — from childhood illness to the struggles of the foster care system. The Foundation has touched the lives of nearly 1000 troubled youths, helping to find a creative outlet that takes them beyond the boundaries of their environment as an alternative to drugs, violence and gangs. Nearly all operating expenses are generously donated in-kind, which allows almost 100 percent of funds to go directly to programs to help children.

About Plex Systems, Inc.

Plex Systems, Inc. is the developer of Plex Online, a SaaS ERP (software as a service) cloud ERP solution for the manufacturing enterprise. Plex Online offers industry-leading features for virtually every department within a manufacturer, including Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and Quality Management Systems (QMS) for the shop floor, Supply Chain Management (SCM) for procurement, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for finance and management. Plex Online’s comprehensive functional coverage delivers a “shop floor to top floor” view of a manufacturer’s operations, enabling management to run its business at maximum efficiency. Founded in 1995,Plex Systems is headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, with customers around the globe. Follow Plex Systems on Twitter.

Plex Systems and Plex Online are trademarks of Plex Systems, Inc.
Contact: Patrick McLaughlin
Markit Strategies for Plex Systems
+1-734-255-6466

 

 

———————————————————–
West  Bloomfield
May 25, 2011
Child Advocate Uses Art to Change Troubled Lives
By Eric Czarnik
C & G Staff Writer
Chip St. Clair sometimes wished that he had a cocoon.
WEST BLOOMFIELD — At age 22, he said he learned that his father was a convicted murderer and a fugitive who escaped an Indiana state prison back in 1973. Around that time, St. Clair said, he also opened a forbidden trunk at his parents’ home and discovered that his birth certificate was forged, and the name he’d used all his life was an alias.
In response to these revelations, St. Clair said, he turned his father in to authorities and later went to court to make the alias his official name. But St. Clair said he still
struggled to make sense of a troubled, abusive childhood, and he had questions
about the direction he should take in his life.
He said he found an answer while observing butterflies at the Detroit Zoo around 2003.
“If you think of what a caterpillar does, its purpose is to devour and consume and destroy its surroundings,” he said. “We can’t let our past allow us to destroy our
surroundings.”
As a motivational speaker and child advocate, St. Clair, 35, of Rochester Hills founded the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation with his wife, Lisa, in 2007. Today, the nonprofit child advocacy group offers creative, therapeutic programs to give children who struggle through adversity a chance for metamorphosis.
“We all face adversity in many different ways,” he said. “If you don’t help them to heal, the battle is really just beginning.”
The young participants in the foundation’s programs often have backgrounds that include losing parents, abuse, foster care and illness. The foundation served almost 4,500 children ages 4-18 last year, and also has partnered with other groups, such as
the domestic violence shelter HAVEN, St. Clair said.
St. Clair said the foundation helps children by offering programs in the creative arts, which served as his own sanctuary and saving grace as a child. The foundation’s programs cover topics such as music, art, stress management, yoga, gardening and nutrition.
“Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy that utilizes various art mediums,” he explained.
“There’s an inner exploration through the creative process that is clinically
proven to help clients cope better.”
Through the power of creative writing, literature and storytelling, kids can also learn how to grow their self-esteem, social skills and interpersonal relationships, he said.
The St. Clair Butterfly Foundation was scheduled to hold its annual Taking Flight gala and fundraiser May 21 at Planterra Conservatory in West  Bloomfield.
“We thought it was a perfect location, being a greenhouse that also has the capability to be a banquet facility,” he said. “We’re hopefully doing a butterfly release, as
well.”
Planterra President Shane Pliska couldn’t comment on the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation, but he said his conservatory hosts events and rents out space because it’s a gorgeous environment.
“It’s a botanical garden setting all under glass with dozens of tropical specimens and such,” he said. “We have the largest indoor living wall in the state of Michigan.”
The St. Clair Butterfly Foundation is located at 411  S. Main St. in Rochester. To learn more, visit www.StClairButterflyFoundation.org.
————————————————
Serving Oakland County
News > Local News
St. Clair Butterfly Foundation helps children in need
Friday, May 13, 2011
ROCHESTER — In just a few shortyears, the Rochester Hills based St. Clair Butterfly Foundation has covered some impressive ground, flitting from city to city, state to state, impacting the lives of children facing adversity with a mission to inspire
change.
Founded in 2007 by Chip and Lisa St. Clair and based upon his bestselling memoir The Butterfly Garden, the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation utilizes the power of creative arts, literature, and overall well-being programs to impact the lives of children and their families.  Art and music programs, nutrition, gardening, yoga, stress management, and even book clubs provide creative outlets for children and teens whose backgrounds vary from abuse to the sudden death of a parent or loved one — from childhood illness to the struggles of the foster care system.
“I’m so proud of our accomplishments in such a short amount of time,” says Chip St. Clair, Executive Director. “Every life we touch starts that metamorphosis toward change — toward hope that didn’t dare exist, toward a dream that has been waiting for the right moment to come alive.  When children lose the ability to dream, we as a society lose our future.”
First sharing his harrowing story in 2002 on such major programs as Dateline and Good Morning America, St. Clair now travels the country as a motivational speaker, sharing his inspirational message in lectures, conferences, classrooms, and juvenile detention facilities. At age 22, St. Clair learned that the brutal man he called father was actually one of America’s most wanted fugitives.  His memoir, The Butterfly Garden (HCI 2008), chronicles his escape into the creative arts, and his metamorphosis from victim to victim’s advocate.  In 2005, St. Clair was honored with a U.S. Congressional Record for his ardent advocacy on behalf of children.
“In a dramatic shift, more and more experts are turning to therapeutic creative arts programs as a means of healing trauma and opening doors to better coping skills.  In these trying financial times, the sad fact is that music and art programs are the first to be cut from a school budget.  From public high schools to domestic violence shelters, the foundation has serviced nearly 4500 children last year alone, including 1000 troubled youths.”
The St. Clair Butterfly Foundation is celebrating these successes at their annual gala Taking Flight, to be held on Saturday, May 21 at Planterra in West Bloomfield.  Highlights of the event include an award reception honoring Judge Ed Sosnick with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and the first ever corporate recognition, the Plex Award, name after and to be awarded to Auburn Hills based Plex Systems, Inc., for
outstanding support and community service. Emceed by Food Network Celebrity Chef Michelle Bommarito, the evening is also slated to include their highly anticipated butterfly release, a symbol, St. Clair says, of the community truly coming together to make a change.
“Change cannot happen by one individual or one charity alone.  It may start there, but it takes a community to foster the growth necessary to keep the hopes and dreams alive in children.”
Based in downtown Rochester, Michigan, the 501c3 non-profit offers community outreach programs, a scholarship program, and legislative initiatives, having successfully helped to change laws in several states to better protect children.  Under the exemplary leadership of the Board of Directors, nearly all operating expenses are generously donated in-kind, which allows almost 100% of funds raised to go directly to programs to help children. For more information on the event and the foundation, visit www.StClairButterflyFoundation.org
———————————-
]]> http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/2011/11/374/feed/ 229 http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/2011/08/319/ http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/2011/08/319/#comments Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:41:05 +0000 Chip St. Clair http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/?p=319

Gerry Smith| Oct 13, 2011 5:53 PM EDT

 

Huffington Post

Family Secrets: Parents Prey On Children’s Identities As Victims Stay Silent

 

A Family Secret

Parents use their children’s Social Security numbers for a variety of reasons. Some use them to get jobs because they have felony convictions on their records. Others use them to apply for credit cards and utilities because their own credit is tarnished.

Last April, Maryland resident Jimmy Louis Craighead, 40, was convicted of stealing the identities of his three children — ages 6, 4 and 2. He told a judge he and his wife were not able to get credit in their own names, so they used their children’s names to get money for food, fuel and other necessities, according to the Carroll County Times.

“They have maxed out their ability to get credit, so they borrow their child’s thinking, ‘Oh, it’s okay. I’ll pay all the bills so by the
time they turn 18, they’ll have great credit,’” Linda Foley, co-founder of ID Theft Info Source and an expert on child identity theft, said at a conference in July. “Well, they haven’t unlearned the bad behaviors that got them in debt in the first place, so at 18, the child ends up in debt.”

That debt can take years to remove from a credit report. When Chip St. Clair was 15, his parents stole his identity to take out nearly $50,000 in student loans, utilities, apartment leases and car loans over the course of three years, he said. He didn’t find out until 1998, when he was 22 and his father was charged with escaping from an Indiana state prison in the 1970s.

He also learned that his father, who went by the name David St. Clair, was actually Michael Dean Grant, a convicted child killer. Grant had used Chip’s Social Security number to create a new identity.

After his father’s arrest in 1998, Chip’s mother wrote a letter for her son to give to his creditors. Written in cursive on stationery with a brown stuffed bear, the letter began “To Whom It May Concern: I am writing
this letter in hopes it will straighten out my son’s credit and financial problems.”

It continued: “Chip is trying to regroup and make something of himself and all this from the past is holding him back. … He should not be held accountable for the sins of his father. … Please try to have compassion for Chip’s situation and help him clear his good name.”

Now 36 and a resident of Rochester, Mich., St. Clair said he has spent the last decade trying to remove fraudulent charges from his credit report while paying high interest rates on loans because of his poor credit. He has still not been able to erase student loans that his parents took out in his name, he said. In October, he tried to open a utility account, but was told he had an outstanding balance of $500 from an address where his parents lived 20 years ago.

“Your credit is your lifeline to society,” St. Clair told The Huffington Post. “When it’s stolen from you, it creates so many problems in your life. It still haunts me to this day.”

Chip St. Clair (left) says his parents stole his identity when he was a child.

—————————————

Hero Stays Modest Amid Media
Blitz

Thursday was just another work day for auto mechanic Antonio Diaz Chacon, who remains humble after receiving an overwhelming response from people around the country wanting to thank him for saving a little girl abducted in her southwest Albuquerque neighborhood on Monday.
Diaz Chacon seems unfazed by the national attention he’s received after chasing down 29-year-old Phillip Garcia, who allegedly grabbed a 6-year-old girl near her home at the Vista del Sol Mobile Home park on Blake near Unser late Monday afternoon and fled. Garcia crashed his van, and Diaz Chacon took the girl from the van and drove her back to her parents.
Local and national media have run numerous stories on Diaz Chacon’s heroism, but the good samaritan said in Spanish on Thursday that he feels the same as he did before the media storm. Now, people around the country have contacted the Journal wanting to donate money and gifts to Diaz Chacon, a local auto mechanic and 24-year-old father of two young girls.
“I put myself in the position of the parent and it brought me to my knees,” John
Beckelhymer of San Antonio, Texas, said in a phone call.“He’s a hero … He saved this little girl’s life. What he did moved me to tears.”
Beckelhymer, the father of two young children himself, reached out to the Journal to get in contact with Diaz Chacon to send him a gift of gratitude and offer him a job.
Diaz Chacon’s story also caught the attention of Chip St. Clair, the author of “The Butterfly Garden,” a book about his abusive father who was on the run from the law for 26 years after killing a child. St. Clair began the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation, a nonprofit that uses creative arts, literature and programs to positively impact the lives of children facing adversity, according to its website.
St. Clair wanted to show his gratitude to Diaz Chacon by buying him and his family a washing machine. Diaz Chacon had been home fixing his washing machine before giving chase for the girl.
“I spoke with his wife, Martha, but she said neighbors were fixing her washing machine and said I could maybe donate a new washer to another family in need,” St. Clair said.
But St. Clair said his organization will honor Diaz Chacon with a guardian angel award and send him a $500 gift card to Sears in recognition for his good deed.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal
]]> http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/2011/08/319/feed/ 276 http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/2011/08/stay-tuned/ http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/2011/08/stay-tuned/#comments Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:06:41 +0000 http://stclairbutterflyfoundation.org/?p=175 West  Bloomfield
May 25, 2011
Child Advocate Uses Art to Change Troubled Lives
By Eric Czarnik
C & G Staff Writer

Chip St. Clair sometimes wished that he had a cocoon.

WEST BLOOMFIELD — At age 22, he said he learned that his father was a convicted murderer and a fugitive who escaped an Indiana state prison back in 1973. Around that time, St. Clair said, he also opened a forbidden trunk at his parents’ home and discovered that his birth certificate was forged, and the name he’d used all his life was an alias.

In response to these revelations, St. Clair said, he turned his father in to authorities and later went to court to make the alias his official name. But St. Clair said he still struggled to make sense of a troubled, abusive childhood, and he had questions about the direction he should take in his life.

He said he found an answer while observing butterflies at the Detroit Zoo around 2003.

“If you think of what a caterpillar does, its purpose is to devour and consume and destroy its surroundings,” he said. “We can’t let our past allow us to destroy our surroundings.”

As a motivational speaker and child advocate, St. Clair, 35, of Rochester Hills founded the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation with his wife, Lisa, in 2007. Today, the nonprofit child advocacy group offers creative, therapeutic programs to give children who struggle through adversity a chance for metamorphosis.

“We all face adversity in many different ways,” he said. “If you don’t help them to heal, the battle is really just beginning.”

The young participants in the foundation’s programs often have backgrounds that include losing parents, abuse, foster care and illness. The foundation served almost 4,500 children ages 4-18 last year, and also has partnered with other groups, such as the domestic violence shelter HAVEN, St. Clair said.

St. Clair said the foundation helps children by offering programs in the creative arts, which served as his own sanctuary and saving grace as a child. The foundation’s programs cover topics such as music, art, stress management, yoga, gardening and nutrition.

“Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy that utilizes various art mediums,” he explained.
“There’s an inner exploration through the creative process that is clinically proven to help clients cope better.”
Through the power of creative writing, literature and storytelling, kids can also learn how to grow their self-esteem, social skills and interpersonal relationships, he said.
The St. Clair Butterfly Foundation was scheduled to hold its annual Taking Flight gala and fundraiser May 21 at Planterra Conservatory in West Bloomfield.

“We thought it was a perfect location, being a greenhouse that also has the capability to be a banquet facility,” he said. “We’re hopefully doing a butterfly release, as well.”

Planterra President Shane Pliska couldn’t comment on the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation, but he said his conservatory hosts events and rents out space because it’s a gorgeous environment.

“It’s a botanical garden setting all under glass with dozens of tropical specimens and such,” he said. “We have the largest indoor living wall in the state of Michigan.”

The St. Clair Butterfly Foundation is located at 411  S. Main St. in Rochester. To learn more, visit www.StClairButterflyFoundation.org.
————————————————
Serving Oakland County
News > Local News
St. Clair Butterfly Foundation helps children in need
Friday, May 13, 2011

ROCHESTER — In just a few shortyears, the Rochester Hills based St. Clair Butterfly Foundation has covered some impressive ground, flitting from city to city, state to state, impacting the lives of children facing adversity with a mission to inspire
change.

Founded in 2007 by Chip and Lisa St. Clair and based upon his bestselling memoir The Butterfly Garden, the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation utilizes the power of creative arts, literature, and overall well-being programs to impact the lives of children and their families.  Art and music programs, nutrition, gardening, yoga, stress management, and even book clubs provide creative outlets for children and teens whose backgrounds vary from abuse to the sudden death of a parent or loved one — from childhood illness to the struggles of the foster care system.

“I’m so proud of our accomplishments in such a short amount of time,” says Chip St. Clair, Executive Director. “Every life we touch starts that metamorphosis toward change — toward hope that didn’t dare exist, toward a dream that has been waiting for the right moment to come alive.  When children lose the ability to dream, we as a society lose our future.”

First sharing his harrowing story in 2002 on such major programs as Dateline and Good Morning America, St. Clair now travels the country as a motivational speaker, sharing his inspirational message in lectures, conferences, classrooms, and juvenile detention facilities. At age 22, St. Clair learned that the brutal man he called father was actually one of America’s most wanted fugitives.  His memoir, The Butterfly Garden (HCI 2008), chronicles his escape into the creative arts, and his metamorphosis from victim to victim’s advocate.  In 2005, St. Clair was honored with a U.S. Congressional Record for his ardent advocacy on behalf of children.

“In a dramatic shift, more and more experts are turning to therapeutic creative arts programs as a means of healing trauma and opening doors to better coping skills.  In these trying financial times, the sad fact is that music and art programs are the first to be cut from a school budget.  From public high schools to domestic violence shelters, the foundation has serviced nearly 4500 children last year alone, including 1000 troubled youths.”

The St. Clair Butterfly Foundation is celebrating these successes at their annual gala Taking Flight, to be held on Saturday, May 21 at Planterra in West Bloomfield.  Highlights of the event include an award reception honoring Judge Ed Sosnick with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and the first ever corporate recognition, the Plex Award, name after and to be awarded to Auburn Hills based Plex Systems, Inc., for outstanding support and community service. Emceed by Food Network Celebrity Chef Michelle Bommarito, the evening is also slated to include their highly anticipated butterfly release, a symbol, St. Clair says, of the community truly coming together to make a change.

“Change cannot happen by one individual or one charity alone.  It may start there, but it takes a community to foster the growth necessary to keep the hopes and dreams alive in children.”

Based in downtown Rochester, Michigan, the 501c3 non-profit offers community outreach programs, a scholarship program, and legislative initiatives, having successfully helped to change laws in several states to better protect children.  Under the exemplary leadership of the Board of Directors, nearly all operating expenses are generously donated in-kind, which allows almost 100% of funds raised to go directly to programs to help children. For more information on the event and the foundation, visit www.StClairButterflyFoundation.org
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