There are families across the New Hampshire Seacoast who step into parenthood without planning for it. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives quietly take on the responsibility of raising children when biological parents are unable to do so. Their days fill quickly with school drop-offs, doctor’s appointments, and bedtime routines layered onto lives that were already full.
In a close-knit Seacoast community, this kind of responsibility does not happen in isolation. It is supported by organizations that understand how much stability matters when circumstances change. Step Up Parents is a New Hampshire and Southern Maine nonprofit that provides financial assistance and support to kinship caregivers raising children affected by substance use disorder. Their work helps families stay together and gives children a steadier foundation during uncertain moments.
Why KRB Supports Step Up Parents
Seeing these families carry so much responsibility reminds us why strong homes and supportive communities are inseparable. As a family-owned business on the New Hampshire Seacoast, KRB Kitchen + Bath Design Center has long believed that creating beautiful, functional spaces is about more than cabinets and countertops—it’s about the people inside them and the communities that sustain them. For the fifth year in a row, KRB supported Step Up Parents, and this 2025 contribution reflects the same values that guide our work every day: family, responsibility, and showing up when it matters most.
Who Step Up Parents Is and Why Their Work Matters
The Story Behind Step Up Parents
Step Up Parents launched in 2019, inspired by close friends of the organization’s founder who were raising their granddaughter while caring for their daughter through addiction. The daily emotional and financial challenges these caregivers faced were overwhelming, and available resources were limited. What began as a call to action for one New Hampshire family has become a safety net for kinship caregivers throughout the state and into Southern Maine.
Everyday Challenges for Kinship Caregivers
When a parent cannot care for their child due to substance use disorder, someone must step up. Often, that someone is a grandparent who had been looking forward to retirement, an aunt who already has children of her own, or an uncle navigating school systems and pediatric appointments. These caregivers don’t hesitate—they do what needs to be done because the child needs stability, love, and a home. But stepping up doesn’t make the financial strain any less real.
Financial and Emotional Support
Step Up Parents provides direct financial assistance to help kinship families cover everyday essentials: groceries, utilities, transportation, school supplies, and summer camp fees. These aren’t luxuries. They are the baseline costs of raising a child, and for many caregivers living on fixed incomes or managing unexpected expenses, they can feel impossible to meet.
Financial support is only part of the equation. Kinship caregivers need to feel seen, valued, and less alone. Each December, Step Up Parents sends $50 Amazon gift cards to the families they have supported throughout the year. The responses from caregivers reveal how meaningful it is to be acknowledged during an especially stressful and expensive time of year. One thank-you note captured it perfectly: the relief, the gratitude, and the simple comfort of knowing someone sees the work you are doing.
Spinning Generosity: Community Impact
This year’s Spinning Generosity fundraiser —a high-energy community cycling event hosted by LizFit—raised $32,978 for Step Up Parents, nearly $3,000 above their goal and $2,000 more than last year’s total. Every dollar goes directly to supporting families in New Hampshire and Southern Maine, and the impact shows up in tangible ways: a child gets to attend summer camp, a utility bill gets paid on time, or a grandmother can afford groceries without choosing between that and her medication.
Over fourteen years, Spinning Generosity has raised more than $1 million for local charities across the Seacoast. That kind of sustained community support does not happen by accident—it happens because people recognize the value of organizations doing the hard, unglamorous work of the behind-the-scenes grass roots efforts to make fundraising come to fruition.
Why This Matters to KRB
Designing Homes for Families
At KRB, we have spent more than thirty years designing spaces for families across the Seacoast. We have worked with young couples renovating their first home, growing families in need of more space, and empty nesters reimagining their home for the next chapter. What connects all of these projects is the same principle that drives Step Up Parents’ work: creating a foundation where life can unfold the way it is meant to.
When we design a kitchen, we are creating a space where a family will gather for breakfast before school, celebrate holidays, and complete homework while dinner simmers on the stove.
Kinship Caregivers and Everyday Commitment
Kinship caregivers are doing the same work, just under circumstances most of us cannot imagine. They step into roles they did not plan for, often at stages of life when they expected something different, and they do it because a child needs them. They create stability where there was chaos and ensure a child has a place to call home, a routine to rely on, and someone who shows up every single day.
That kind of commitment does not come with fanfare. It is the quiet, steady work of showing up and doing what needs to be done, even when it is hard. It is the same approach we have always taken at KRB—focused on the long term, grounded in responsibility, and built on the belief that doing things right matters more than doing them quickly.
Shared Values: Stability and Responsibility
Step Up Parents is not flashy. They are not running expensive marketing campaigns or throwing galas. They put money directly into the hands of families who need it, with dignity and respect. That is the kind of organization we are proud to support—one that measures success not by visibility, but by the number of families who make it through another month, another school year, another holiday season.
Giving Back as Part of Who We Are
KRB is a family-owned business. We have been locally operated on the New Hampshire Seacoast for more than three decades, and we have built our reputation on trust, craftsmanship, and treating people the way we would want to be treated.
Supporting local nonprofits like Step Up Parents is not a marketing strategy—it is part of the responsibility that comes with being established in a community for this long. We have benefited from the trust and loyalty of homeowners for more than thirty years. We have been invited into people’s homes during some of the most significant transitions of their lives—new babies, aging parents moving in, retirements, empty nests. That trust is something we take seriously, and it is something we want to honor by showing up for the community that has shown up for us.
December is a natural time to consider not just what we have accomplished, but where responsibility calls us beyond our own work. For KRB, that includes supporting the people and organizations who make the Seacoast a place where families can put down roots. There is something fundamentally grounding about giving back locally. You see the impact in ways you cannot when writing a check to a national organization. You know the people involved. You run into them at the grocery store, at your kids’ soccer games, at community events. You understand the challenges they are facing because you are facing some of the same ones. That connection matters.
The Bigger Picture
One of the things we appreciate most about Step Up Parents is how clearly they understand their mission. They are not trying to solve every problem or be everything to everyone. They are focused on kinship caregivers in New Hampshire and Southern Maine, providing direct, practical support that makes a measurable difference. We understand that kind of focus—staying in your lane, doing the work that needs to be done without distractions, and prioritizing long-term value over short-term flash.
Step Up Parents operates with patience, attention to detail, and a willingness to meet families where they are. They are not chasing headlines or scaling for the sake of growth. They listen to what kinship caregivers need and provide support that is both practical and compassionate. There is something deeply reassuring about that approach—knowing an organization understands its purpose and stays committed to it.
The families Step Up Parents serves are building something essential: a stable, loving home for a child who needs one. They do it under circumstances that would break most of us, and they do it because walking away was never an option. That is the kind of commitment that deserves support, recognition, and respect.
Looking Ahead
Step Up Parents will continue serving kinship families in 2026 and beyond. The need is not going away, and neither are the caregivers who step up every single day to provide love, stability, and a future for the children in their care.
If you would like to learn more about Step Up Parents or find out how you can support their mission, visit stepupparents.org. Their work matters, and they deserve all the support this community can offer.
At KRB, we are grateful to be part of a community that shows up for one another. Thank you for trusting us with your homes and your projects—and for being part of what makes the Seacoast a place worth calling home.
