Support The Enlisted Project (STEP)

As a non-profit founded by Veterans, we understand the lifestyle challenges that come with volunteering to serve your country. At STEP, we are familiar with the challenges associated with the job, including frequent moves, deployments, unreimbursed expenses, and low pay. Our Social Workers, certified in financial counseling, will work with you one-on-one to develop a Personal Finance Plan. Your plan may include an emergency grant* to prevent the loss of critical basic needs. *grant qualifications: imminent risk of loss of a critical basic need; E1-E6 Active-Duty or Veteran service member up to 18 months post service, currently living in Southern California or Washington state.

Our vision is to be relevant, reliable and responsive. In that, we aim to change the lives of young

1. $10,000 has been invested into employee development programs such as webinars, certification courses, nonprofit solutions management subscription. 2. $5,000 has been invested into employee education reimbursement programs. 3. The agency absorbs the cost and grants required time for all social workers work to become certified financial counselors, obtaining a Certified Personal Financial Counselor (CPFC) certification. Additionally, staff social workers are required to become certified as a Financial Social Worker (CFSW).

Employees are encouraged to sit on external boards (state, county, city, and community), committees, coalition boards, collaborative boards, and commissions, where 18 seats are held in the community by STEP employees. Employees are encouraged to speak at conferences, panels, podcasts and seminars where they can share their professional expertise, nationally if possible, where this has occurred 14 times in last two years (zoom included). Employees are submitted for community awards and recognition bringing awareness to their efforts to improve our community; where 6 major awards have been won in last 12 months. Employees guest lecture at local universities in area of expertise, 2 times this year. Fundraisers, program execution and marketing campaigns include participation from other military support agencies regularly, approximately 50 times in last two years. Staff is trained in public speaking and outreach, interacting on site where clients join together for military focused events.

In March 2020, on the second day after everything shut down, we received a call from a Navy Chaplin assigned to a ship on the waterfront. He explained that all the Sailors that were on the ship at the time were getting locked onboard, despite their plans on going home at night. He told us that there were nine of them that were supposed to stop at the store on the way home to get food, diapers and baby formula for their families. He asked if we could help. Although we had no process to support in this manner, we immediately devised a process where we met all the needs and requirements of our donors, while meeting the requirements of our clients. After some email exchanges, pictures of signatures, excel spreadsheets, STEP members put what the Chaplin needed on a pallet late that night where he came pick it all up and leave on the doorsteps of the needy families. Knowing that safety of survival was becoming an immediate need, we shifted gears to acquire more basic needs for distribution, reassign our financial counseling social workers to engage with clients in a screening/triage process during distributions, and working to provide needed information. Our warehouse containing baby clothes, toys, books and the like was moved to the now useless conference room. The emptied warehouse was filled with food, diapers, wipes, hygiene items and the like. As we were working out our systems of sourcing supplies from donors, food banks, Amazon, and Target, we received another call from military leadership, that there were 400 military spouses locked in their homes, fearful of contracting COVID and loosing custody of their children as their military spouses were at sea as one of the 5,000 sailors on the USS Teddy Roosevelt, which had come under its massive COVID infection. From here, things just got busy. We saw it as our duty to adjust to the new environment of our clients, serve them where and how they need to do it, while keeping an eye on our mission, vision and values.