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Purpose

Our purpose is to offer help to families in the area of budgeting and planning. Budgeting, as it relates to financial issues; and planning, as it relates to meal preparation, purchases, and other short terms concerns.

Helping families understand cooperative power as it relates to purchasing, in order to bring savings to the family. Expanding that cooperative power to joint ventures that teach skills for living such as home repair, bartering, seeking, and utilizing opportunities that make dreams come true.

Assist families in obtaining knowledge and awareness of all human resources/services available to them. Sponsor seminars that coordinate various services to enhance and assist the family's ever changing and growing needs.

Goals and Objectives

• Provide classes that will address current problems that face individuals/families today.
  
• Assist those attending classes how to understand financial matters such as, but not limited to, setting realistic goals, planning to spend, understanding stewardship/ownership concepts, and the difference between needs and wants.
  
• Introduce individuals/families to the concept of setting short-term objectives that will equate to becoming debt free.
  
• Defining bartering and helping participants use this method as a means of offsetting some of their cost.
  
• SIA will coordinate with other local services to teach meal planning, where the participants plan their meals and base their purchases on the plan.
  
• Introduce the concept of setting long-term goals that the participants will join together to form a co-op. Through this co-op they will be able to have better purchasing power which will have a substantial saving to each participant.
  
• Scheduling seminars that promote knowledge awareness in the following areas:
  • Simple Home Repair - Maintaining My Investment
  • Renting vs. Home Ownership - What's Best for Me?
  • What Your Credit Reports Says About You.
  • From Savings to Investments
  • Long Term Care - Medicare/Medicaid
  • After the Funeral - Who's Responsible for the Debt?
  • Health Screenings and Preventive Care
  • Children Learning to Budget and Save
  SIA will coordinate these seminars with other agencies - service and health care providers, and legal representatives to provide the factual information for those attending.
  
• Stewardship/ownership presentations focus on biblical concepts, and the need to follow scripture-based principles in all financial matters. Although SIA is a Christian-based organization, it does not impose its beliefs on those that seek assistance.

History 

Stewards in Action (S.I.A.) was a part of the effort of One Step Budgeting, a service designed to teach people how to live debt free. The owner, Karen Cheathem, worked for several years to try to teach the simple concept of budgeting but found there were many other hidden problems that hindered some from achieving their goal.

The trend known as downsizing was having an effect on households across Muskegon County . Understanding how to live on less using the concept of budgeting, in-home meal planning and other support helps was a skill that had to be embraced if families were to survive.

On August 20, 1997 , Perry Cheathem, Jr., Sequita Jackson and Karen Cheathem met to discuss what they could do to help families in financial need. From this meeting Stewards In Action was born.

From that first meeting through November 17, 1999 , Karen continued her research and worked with families. With a retrospect view of the many government programs designed to assist those in need, it was determined that the focus was physical in nature, that is, someone noted the need, and based on X dollars, devised a plan to help. The missing piece in the plan was the inner or spiritual makeup of the persons in need. Families receiving the services felt anxious, defeated, and self-reproachful. In addition, their very dignity was weakened and their very freedom was at risk. With that in view, S.I.A.'s approach was to give families opportunities to maximize what they have to achieve what they need.

In September, 2002, Stewards in Action (SIA) became a publicly supported organization and tax exempt from federal income tax 501 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code as an organization described in section 501 (c)( 3).