Coming Soon

Coming Soon

When I found STEPMC, I was a single mom with three young children. I was both fragile and fighting like hell with every breath. When I got to STEP, there were people who grabbed me, held me, and at times shook me—bringing me to the edge of what felt like cliffs—and then gave me the courage to leap.

I will never forget the night Neisha and Michelle pulled me aside and said, “Rebecca, we see something in you. We’re going to hold you up until you can see it in yourself.” That stopped me in my tracks—because shame was still a huge part of my story. They saw something in me?

Then they gave me a chance. They hired me to be the STEPMC Coach.
They. Hired. Me.

That’s when everything began to change. Brenda Sales and I set out on a mission to help people break free from financial, relational, and community poverty. We also took seriously the call to help shift middle-class mindsets. Our people became our song, and we began to sing—loudly—that together, we could change things.

At STEPMC, I began to make sense of my story. And I found the pen to start writing the next chapter. I don’t know how much I contributed to STEPMC—but I do know that because of STEPMC, I am where I am today.

I continue to build projects like STEPMC out in the world because we have a solution. Together, we can co-author new stories—for ourselves and our communities.

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I was involved with STEPMC from the very beginning. At first, there was a team of people from First United Methodist Church (FUMC) in McPherson, and the

goal was to find ways to be involved and active in the needs of our community that were not currently being met. The team

began to look to the next focus, Karen Rice Ratzlaff, the pastor, became aware of a group in Newton that was working with people in poverty through the national Circles organization.

Initially, the team raised about $5,000, and the response was overwhelming and so supportive and encouraging. We moved forward to become a member of the Circles organization to receive the necessary training and guidance to get started. Our biggest hurdle was financial…we

needed $25,000 for the initial fee, which was a lot! An anonymous donation of $25,000 was an answer to many prayers. Many, many things were happening at once, and we were a completely volunteer-led organization at this time.

Amazingly, they had a great first class. Today, I am still in relationship with my very first leader and her family. It has been an amazing 15 years and I am in awe of the people I meet every week at STEPMC meetings. It

has been life-changing for me and she is so very grateful to have been involved with this incredible organization.

I was so lucky to work with Rebecca, who had just graduated from our Getting Ahead Class. She brought that experience to develop our future classes. I was more on the Administrative side - organizing our policies and procedures for our participants, working on our finances, speaking to community groups to introduce Circles, and what our mission was. And most importantly. FUNDRAISING! We found that developing relationships with our Getting Ahead participants, Circle Leaders, and Allies, transformations just happened, and lives were changing for the better.