Blog
Community Changemaker: Grands Stepping Up
Meet the people helping our communities grow, connect and thrive.
When grandparents and relatives step forward to care for children, saying “yes” can change the course of a child’s life. But that yes can also come with unexpected challenges: finding food and clothing, navigating custody, covering emergency expenses, locating a car seat or crib, or simply finding someone who understands.
Grands Stepping Up (GSU) exists to help make that “yes” possible.
Based in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, the nonprofit provides a holistic network of support for grandparents and other kinship caregivers raising children when circumstances require family to step in. Through food assistance, emergency resources, legal support, wellness programming, community connections and more, GSU works to strengthen the entire family while helping children remain connected to the people, relationships and communities they know.
At the center of that mission is a simple belief: children deserve the opportunity to find stability within their families whenever possible.
“We’re trying to lift these families up so that the kids can have the permanency within their extended families,” said GSU founder and president Karen Barnes.
Built From Lived Experience
GSU’s mission is rooted in Barnes’ own experience.
Barnes has been raising her granddaughter for 14 years. What she encountered along that journey helped her recognize how much grandparents and kinship caregivers can be asked to take on, sometimes with little financial assistance or knowledge of where to turn for help.
Nearly seven years ago, that experience became the foundation for Grands Stepping Up.
“We’re trying to offer resources and make it easier so that the grandparents have what they need to be able to say yes to keep the grand and kinship kids with them in their home.”
Karen Barnes
Today, that support reaches families facing a wide range of circumstances. Barnes estimates that more than 80% of the families GSU serves have been affected by the opioid epidemic, while others have stepped into caregiving because of incarceration, death, mental health challenges or other significant changes in family circumstances.
Whatever brings a family to GSU, the organization focuses on what they need next.
Supporting the Whole Family
GSU describes its approach as a “holistic wheel of support,” recognizing that stability often depends on much more than addressing a single need.
Sometimes that means helping a family facing eviction or an unexpected home repair. Other times, a caregiver needs help with legal expenses, child care, transportation or food.
And sometimes, the need is immediate.
Barnes described situations in which a grandmother is preparing to bring an infant home but doesn’t have a crib, car seat or other necessities. GSU works to fill those gaps so caregivers have what they need to safely welcome children into their homes.
The organization’s Denis’ Pantry has become an important part of that support. Named in loving memory of Barnes’ late brother who passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic, the full-service food pantry carries his legacy forward by serving families throughout Delaware County.
The pantry grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, when families across the community were struggling to find food and basic necessities. Expanding its reach also allowed GSU to develop relationships with food distributors and community partners, increasing its ability to support the grandfamilies and kinship families at the heart of its mission.
Creating Space to Heal
GSU is also expanding what support can look like beyond meeting physical and financial needs.
This year brought another step forward. Grands Stepping Up received $100,000 through Delaware County’s opioid task force to launch its new Wellness & Therapeutic Services Center, expanding the organization’s support for grandparents, kinship caregivers and children. The program combines trauma-informed wellness services with the food, fellowship and community connection that have become central to GSU’s approach.
The program incorporates age-specific groups beginning with children as young as three, along with programming for teenagers and caregivers. Workshops explore different themes, while food and fellowship create opportunities for families to build relationships with others who understand their experiences.
For Barnes, that connection is part of the support.
“They can just even know that their neighbor down the street is also raising their grandchildren,” she said, “so that they’re not alone.”
Karen Barnes
That commitment to connection extends beyond GSU’s therapeutic programming. Barnes described caregivers who may live too far away to attend a workshop but still reach out for support. GSU connects with families virtually, helps identify resources and works with other organizations to strengthen support for caregivers beyond Delaware County.
What Support Can Make Possible
Over the years, GSU has seen what can happen when families have support for the long haul.
Barnes recalled one family the organization supported for approximately eight years while the children’s parents experienced significant challenges with addiction. Eventually, the parents entered recovery. They found jobs, reunited, purchased a home and were ultimately able to have their children return to their care.
For GSU, success isn’t defined by one particular family structure. It is about helping create the safest, strongest path forward for children and the people who love them.
That is also why collaboration has become central to the organization’s work. GSU works with agencies and community organizations, connects families with resources and advocates for greater support for grandfamilies and kinship caregivers.
“When we all work together, it just assists all of us in whatever our ventures are because we’re all on the same team,” Barnes said. “We’re all helping the same people.”
And ultimately, those people include children whose stories are still being written.
Barnes doesn’t know what the future holds for the children GSU serves. Maybe, she said, one will become “our next president,” a Phillies player, an Olympian or “somebody that’s going to change the world.”
What she does know is that they deserve the opportunity to find out.
“We are saving kids, and that’s just really what it’s all about. We’re giving them the voice and giving them the chance, the best shot that they have.”
Karen Barnes
For Grands Stepping Up, every resource provided, every caregiver supported and every partnership built is part of creating that chance.
To learn more about Grands Stepping Up, access resources or find ways to connect and support its work, visit the Grands Stepping Up website.