Community Spotlight: STEP (Strategies to Elevate People)
"You Were Created for a Purpose"
The Heart Behind STEP with Executive Director Tim Cole
A few weeks ago, Tim Cole's phone started buzzing with texts, one after another: acceptance letters from Morgan State, Norfolk State, and ODU, all in the same week. On the other end was a mom Tim has known since her son, Javon, was a kindergartner hanging around the STEP office coloring sneakers with his best friend. “Tim, I'm just crying over here,” she texted. “My baby's gonna be something.” Tim's answer: “Your baby is something. He is something. And if he didn't get into college, he'd still be something.”
That's the heart behind STEP, a Richmond ministry that has spent more than three decades meeting people exactly where they are, and helping them discover the purpose God already placed in them.
A 30-Year Yes
Tim's own connection to STEP goes back to 1994, long before he ever imagined leading it. His church asked him to pick up donated toys for STEP's Christmas store and drive them over, an easy yes since he worked evenings and had the afternoon free. “What could be better,” he says, “than showing up with a whole SUV full of toys?” The next year, he and his wife joined a “family share team,” one of several small groups from local churches that walked alongside a family in the community.
Everything changed in 1997. Listening to a guest speaker at his own church one Sunday, Tim describes being stopped in his tracks in a way he still can't fully explain. What stuck with him was the invitation: that somebody in the room was being called to full-time vocational ministry. Not long after, a postcard arrived in the mail: STEP was hiring a director for a new program called Jobs Partnership, known today as Jobs for Life. He came on as an Employment Specialist, doing work close to what he'd already been doing at VCU. Two years later, on a Martin Luther King Day in 2000, the board asked him to become Executive Director. He's led STEP ever since.
What STEP Does
Everything STEP does grows out of one conviction, printed on the T-shirts staff and volunteers wear: You were created for a purpose. Here’s just a few of the programs they offer:
• Jobs for Life runs twice a year in multi-week semesters. It's a biblically grounded work-readiness program: less job training, more life-and-character formation, walking through identity, relationships, conflict, and calling before ever getting to a resume. Every class shares a meal together first. Along the way, students build a resume, complete practice interviews with real business people, and sit in on two roundtable panels: one with local employers, one with social-service partners covering everything from credit repair to job certifications.
• Victory Reading is an after-school reading program for kids in kindergarten through 3rd grade (they can stay through 5th if they started early). It grew out of a plea from a local elementary school principal whose students couldn't pass their reading exams, and from a handful of women who started out meeting one child at a time in a hallway.
• Summer Enrichment picks up where Victory Reading leaves off each summer, giving kids hands-on rotations (woodworking, cooking, music, even square dancing), all built around helping a child discover something they're good at and drawn to and helping them to find their worth in Christ.
Lives, Changed
Ask Tim for a story and he has a dozen ready.
There's Phyllis, who came through Jobs for Life in 1998 carrying real pain and a long-buried dream of becoming a nurse. She found both healing and that dream again, training as a CNA and spending 12 years in hospice care before returning to STEP, where she now works full-time, walking alongside women in the community exactly where she once stood.
There's Mona, who sat down across from Tim in tears, certain she'd never find work again. Within weeks of finishing class, she was catering at a downtown restaurant; six weeks later, she was the catering manager.
And there's Joey, a first-grader in Summer Enrichment who, without a word, started washing his hands in the exact rhythm he'd watched Tim use at the sink. “It matters that kids see us doing things,” Tim says. “They're watching. And they need us to be there.”
How You Can Be Part of the Story This Fall
STEP's Jobs for Life fall semester started on August 25th, and STEP would love for our Needle's Eye community to be part of it. Here are some ways we can be apart of what STEP is doing:
• Mentor a student at Jobs for Life. Classes run Tuesdays, 6–8pm through November 24 at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. STEP is still in need of a few more women mentors!
• Partner at the Resource Fair. STEP is looking for community partners for its Resource Fair on October 13.
• Interview a student. Mock Interview Night is November 3 at Needle's Eye (2550 Gaskins Rd). Business people sit down with students for practice interviews, and more than once, a “practice” interview has turned into a real job offer.
• Bring a meal. Every class starts with dinner together. A team, a family, or a business can sign up to cover a night; even a few pizzas and a salad goes a long way. Meals are still needed for September 22 and October 27.
• Cheer them on at Graduation. Also at Needle's Eye, November 24.
• Tutor for Victory Reading. Volunteers are needed Monday through Thursday, 3:45-5:45pm, at New Life Baptist Church. Most volunteers commit to just one day a week, so there’s plenty of flexibility.
If any of this stirs something in you, STEP would love to hear from you. Visit steprichmond.org or reach out to the STEP office directly. All volunteers go through a background check.
