The Stepping Stone Foundation, a nonprofit organization serving the Oklahoma City metro area, helps support teen parents by providing them with the resources to help them thrive in their academic, professional and home environments.
Stepping Stone co-founder Meg Durham is a former Oklahoma City Public Schools teacher, a position that enabled her to see issues facing many lower income, urban students. She and her husband, Nic, dedicated themselves to helping support teen parents by creating a program to help teen parents complete their high school education and find a viable career path.
“Graduating high school and pursuing a secondary education is difficult for anyone. The challenge may prove insurmountable to teen parents,” explains Nic. “We decided we wanted to focus on helping teen parents finishing up high school, getting a diploma, taking some form of secondary education, and finding a career to support their family. Hence, Stepping Stone was born.”
Stepping Stone hosts monthly luncheons that provide support and resources for teen parents. They provide tools, such as laptops, to help make secondary education more accessible to teen parents, and provide scholarship assistance and financial support for needs that the family may have.
In addition, the foundation connects teen parents to each other to create a community of support and provides mentorship opportunities that allow students to grow through the rest of their high school, college or technical school education to help them find employment opportunities and explore career pathways.
“We hope that Stepping Stone can help them set goals and decide what type of careers they might be interested in, while also helping them raise their families,” Nic says. “My wife and I have a passion to help, but we are not experts in all of the industries that kids want to go into. We bring in experts to provide updates on career and salary trends. When they decide what career they want to pursue, we pair them up with an expert in that field.”
By working with experts in the community, Stepping Stone helps connect students to job opportunities through mentorship and learning experiences.
One of Stepping Stone’s community partners is Infinity Custom Homes, which specializes in custom home building and remodeling. Infinity Custom Homes provides mentorship opportunities for students who are interested in construction, remodeling and HVAC.
Infinity Custom Homes strives to provide their clients with quality service, while also giving back to the community, creating a natural partnership with Stepping Stone.
“Bringing in experts from different companies helps teens support themselves and their family through their future career” Nic elaborates. “This is where mentors from partners like Infinity Custom Homes become so critical to us. We provide scholarships for all secondary education opportunities for these students. However, we have seen that just scholarships without mentorship are nowhere near as impactful to students, so building these relationships is critical to achieving our goals.”
By supporting teen parents through mentorship, education and job opportunities, Stepping Stone helps them reach their individual goals and create meaningful professional and personal connections.
“Every time we see one of the students finish a semester of school and get one step closer to their goals, it’s meaningful to us,” said Nic. “When the students finish school and they recognize what they have accomplished with the help of Stepping Stone, it makes them want to support other students who are thinking about their future, which is encouraging for everyone.”
For more information about The Stepping Stone Foundation and Infinity Custom Homes, visit their websites at SteppingStoneOKC.wordpress.com and InfinityCustomHomesOKC.com or find them on social media @thesteppingstonefoundation and @infintiycustomhomesokc.