First Steps For Families

Mike and Penny Smith, decided to start First Steps for Families as a result of both Penny's more than 20 years of experience as both a First Grade and a Pre-K teacher at Stephen F. Austin Elementary (where both Mike and Penny attended elementary school), and Mike's several years teaching Bible classes in the Tom Green County Jail as a volunteer for Through God Comes Justice Ministries, Inc (Jail Ministry).

Penny and Mike Smith @ Working Together for a Drug Free Community - 2007

First Steps for Families, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit dot-org, recognizes that the inter-generational cycle of crime and poverty that defines the lives of many young children deprives them of essential life experiences that constitute a fulfilling childhood.


Located in San Angelo, Texas, First Steps for Families seeks to minister to these at-risk children and their families by providing free and low-cost, quality, extended hours daycare; mentoring; and life-skills classes for:  families living below the poverty level; families with (an) incarcerated member(s); or, families with (a) member(s) re-entering society from prison / jail who is attempting to make positive changes in his or her life by:

* completing community service responsibilities 
* fulfilling probation or deferred adjudication obligations
* attending college, technical school or, job training
* attending support groups (including church)
* being gainfully employed.

 First Steps for Families expects to help the children of these inmates get ahead in school and find alternatives to joining their family in a multi-generational cycle of crime and poverty.  And, once the inmate is released (often at midnight with only the clothes on their back and money for a bus ticket back to where they came from) First Steps for Families, when asked,  will join other local area ministries to help the former inmate break away from their former lifestyle and begin a new life outside of their former activities and former friends and associates.

The First Steps for Families educational program will focus on providing intensive literacy and academic curriculum for children from birth through Pre-Kindergarten. This will ensure that these children will have a solid foundation of learning before entering public school, thereby giving them an advantage or "headstart" in school and in life. 

Our program will also maintain a low student to teacher ratio so that extra love, care, attention and understanding may be given each child and family. To facilitate this low student / teacher ratio, First Steps recognizes and will utilize the full resources of our community (paid employees, faith-based volunteers, community volunteers and mentors, student teachers from Angelo State University and Howard College, grandparent volunteers, tutors and retired teacher volunteers.) 

First Steps will also help portray a positive image of education by being a direct liaison between families and schools and assisting family members attempting to receive GED or higher-education diplomas.

First Steps will strive to teach and instill in its participants life skills, morals and values by implementing successful programs such as "Conscious Discipline" (from Loving Guidance), "The Leader in Me" and "No Excuses University."  These programs build confidence, self-esteem, competency and a sense of personal worth and dignity, ultimately endowing our community with more responsible citizens.

First Steps For Families makes no apologies for being a faith-based organization, citing faith in and giving glory to the One true living God.

2007 Working Together for a Drug Free Community

In the classroom, Penny encountered first graders who knew of no other lifestyle than that of crime, where both boys and girls believed that their only destiny in life was to join their family in a life of crime and incarceration. They fully expect to go to jail when they grow-up, if they grow-up.  Others simply refused to go home,  preferring to sleep where they could on the playground or in the neighborhood.  One child was suicidal at six years old.
Sadly, in the PreK classes, it was more of the same where children announced without any sense of shame, that they were staying with [other family members] because the police came and took Mom to Jail. 

Mike's experiences while teaching in the jail revealed the existence of yet even more problems in a system that seems to be stacked against anyone who wants a better life, free from drugs and crime. With few resources and no place to go, these former inmates and parolees are most often left with no place to go but back to their former friends and old ways, regardless of the progress they might have made in the several rehabilitation programs offered to them "on the inside." 

First Steps for Families has committed itself to making a difference in the lives of the children and their families, but we need your help: 

     a)  establishing and operating a daycare / family                 enrichment facility for these children and their families;
    b) funding scholarships for deserving children  to:  provide free and low-cost, quality, extended hours daycare; mentoring; and life-skills classes for: families living below the poverty level;  families with (an) incarcerated member(s); or,  families with (a) member(s) re-entering society from prison / jail who is attempting to  make positive changes in his or her life by: 
* completing community service responsibilities
* fulfilling probation or deferred adjudication obligations
* attending college, technical school or, job training
* attending support groups (including church)
* being gainfully employed.

First Steps For Families is a  registered public charity.   Your donations are Tax Deductable.  Our is IRS TAX ID : 20-8615057. 

We NEED YOUR HELP to remodel and outfit our first building. We saved and paid cash for our building at 1011 N. Chadbourne.  We need your help to outfit and bring the building up to code.