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Last October, an infant baby was found in a local public school in the waste can of the girl's bathroom. The child was the result of teenage girl being victimized by her stepfather.

This was the second baby that the 16-year-old mother had by her stepfather. Muskegon County residents in Michigan were enraged.

After the initial shock and anger wore off, members of the Michigan Organizing Project (MOP) in Muskegon began to ask the kind of questions that no one wanted to answer. How did this child fall through the cracks in the system? How many other children have fallen or will fall through similar cracks?

MOP started meeting with local area pastors and interested allies in the area. All were concerned about the fact that the system failed this young girl. MOP Pastors and leadership knew that pointing fingers was not the right approach. The answer was to organize and to take the system on and hold it accountable to the community.

MOP started to meet with the Director of the Muskegon Family Independence Agency (FIA). MOP leaders demanded that the institution conduct an internal investigated and create a report to the public with action steps on how they would fix their programs and policies. The director refused to work with MOP or conduct an investigation.

"Our system is broken and falling apart" stated Pastor John Shyne Jr. of Berean Grace Church and MOP Co-Chair." We cannot wait until another child falls through these cracks, after all, a baby died but so did a little girl and her life will never be the same."

Leaders of MOP met again with the agency and demanded that an investigation be done. Leaders researched different investigative models and presented them to the agency, but the agency still refused to do an internal investigation.

MOP is expanding their fight onto a state level, to take on both local and state child welfare policies and will plan an action against the local FIA agency in November.