Stepping Stones of the Roaring Fork Valley

Stepping Stones is a community-based mentoring program that serves over 350 young people annually, empowering participants to thrive through risk prevention and crisis intervention services. Our philosophy is that strong, long-term relationships with positive adults are the key to empowering at-risk youth and their families. Our drop-in centers are open five days a week, and provide a diverse, bilingual, family-like atmosphere where youth receive skill development, nightly meals, basic needs assistance, educational support, family engagement, and experiential programming. Stepping Stones supports young people to accomplish their own goals, like finding their first job, reducing substance use, going camping for the first time, beginning counseling, or improving their grades. Our youth program serves ages 10 to 14, and our young adult program serves ages 15 to 24. Stepping Stones served 366 individual youth who visited our drop-in centers 6,113 times. Stepping Stones also provided over 6000 meals, facilitated 2,589 mentoring sessions, and mentored youth toward achieving 295 self-identified goals.