That's the motto emblazoned on a pin worn Tuesday by McClintock when she received the state's Outstanding Crime Victim Advocate of the Year award from Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath.
The award comes on the heels of a tribute from Missoula. Earlier this year, Mayor John Engen pronounced Feb. 28, 2007, Leslie McClintock Day in a proclamation signed by himself and the Board of County Commissioners.
Wearing a pair of flat blue-and-gray sandals, McClintock, a 25-year employee of Missoula County, accepted the honor from McGrath on Tuesday afternoon. McGrath told McClintock his shoes were comfortable, too. He wore dark-colored leather shoes with tassels.
McClintock said she started working in the field because she herself experienced domestic violence. It was long before the city offered services, and a good friend helped her.
Now, programs exist for survivors of domestic abuse, and McGrath said McClintock herself helped start many of them.
“I have passion for this work,” said McClintock, who worked at the Office of Planning and Grants for 16 years.
On Tuesday, though, McClintock deflected much of the praise showered on her. She said she was accepting the award on behalf of all the advocates with whom she worked.
“Every single one of these people has passion and heart,” McClintock said.
Cheering and offering a standing ovation in the packed Missoula City Council chambers, her peers definitely showed passion for McClintock.
“It's pretty obvious we chose the right person,” McGrath said.
Before her retirement earlier this year from OPG's Crime Victim Advocate Program, McClintock pulled in $6.2 million in grants that support social services. She isn't just a money person, though. She works with people, and many describe her as “an advocate's advocate.”
“She's been so supportive of other advocates,” said Kelly Slattery of the YWCA.
Though she is technically retired, McClintock continues to work on behalf of crime victims as a volunteer. She is also a poet and just finished submitting a manuscript to a first-book contest.
“It's about violence against women,” she said.
While the topic is grim, it isn't impossibly so. McClintock said preventing childhood sexual abuse is a key to supporting the work crime victim advocates do.
“There is great hope for solving this problem and making great inroads,” McClintock said.
Officials consider Missoula and Montana fortunate to have McClintock in their midst.
“The number of lives that have been saved because of Leslie's work and that of her staff will never be known,” reads part of the proclamation presented by Engen at a City Council meeting earlier this year.
“Any community in Montana would be lucky to have what you have in Missoula with Leslie McClintock,” McGrath said.
Reporter Keila Szpaller can be reached at 523-5262 or at Keila.Szpaller@missoulian.com.
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