CHARLOTTESVILLE (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — Everyday inside of a warehouse in Charlottesville, volunteers with Stepping Stone Charlottesville are packing up and delivering diapers, clothes and other essential items for families in the area with young children up to 3 years old.

The organization was founded by its executive director, Ashely Schneider, in 2022. Reflecting on Stepping Stone’s founding, Schneider told Cville Right Now that she had young children of her own at the time and was grateful to receive hand-me-downs and have access to essential items for her kids. 

She had heard about organizations across the country that helped provide other families with the same crucial access to baby essentials, but after speaking with some friends involved with local nonprofits, she discovered that type of organization didn’t exist in Charlottesville. So, she set out to start one.

Now, Stepping Stone is fully running and partnered with about 42 organizations around Charlottesville, including UVA Health, Albemarle County and Charlottesville City Schools and ReadyKids among others, according to its 2025 Impact Report. 

These organizations help connect Stepping Stone with families through a referral system. Schneider said it’s the social workers, nurses and family support workers from those partners that help Stepping Stone identify the families in need. They also fill out the order form that identifies what the families need, allowing Stepping Stone to quickly get to work.

“We’re able to get to work right away,” Schneider said, “We don’t care about documentation. We don’t care about salary requirements. We just lean on our partners who we trust to identify those families who have been deemed needing some extra help.”

It’s also through these partnerships that volunteer Paula Darradji first heard about the organization, while finishing up her 43-year career as a NICU nurse at UVA.

“Some of the social workers were getting items from Stepping Stone,” she recalled to Cville Right Now, “and it was fairly new, period, at the time and fairly new to me and I said, ‘Well, what is this?’”

Darradji began volunteering with Stepping Stone not long after retiring in the Fall of 2023. She enjoyed the experience so much that she convinced a former co-worker of hers, Norma Dobbins, a hospital teacher in the UVA NICU, to join her in August of last year.

“I ran into her at Wegman’s,” Dobbins told Cville Right Now, “and she said ‘Oh my gosh, you need to come with me. You will enjoy volunteering with them.’”

Both women said their favorite part of volunteering is delivering the items to the families, as they get to meet the parents and kids their work is impacting.

“Sometimes you’re there more than one time at the same household because their children grow up and they might need bigger size clothing or something like that,” Darradji said, “so that’s been lovely because sometimes the families will remember you.”

Outside of volunteering, the nonprofit also leans on community support through donations to keep its inventory stocked, with an emphasis on reusing as much as possible.

“We’ve got tons of families in Charlottesville, so it’s really never been a problem.” Schneider said, adding the organization has received plenty of donations, with families giving away strollers, pack-and-plays, bags of clothes and boxes of unused diapers among other items. 

Stepping Stone also benefits from grant funding and individual contributions, allowing the organization to buy supplies to fill all of its requests, including some items like car seats which legally must be new.

With help from all-around the community, Stepping Stone has made a significant impact, filling 1,698 total order requests in 2025 while distributing over 8,160 clothing items, 288 car seats and 257 strollers according to its impact report.

For those looking to support Stepping Stone’s effort, Schneider said the best way to do so right now is through financial donations in order to “keep the lights on at our warehouse” as well as continue to buy supplies. She also encouraged more item donations, particularly hygiene products and diapers which she says “just fly off our shelves.”

On their ends, both Darradji and Dobbins said they’ve done their part to spread the word about Stepping Stone, a task made easy thanks to their love of the organization.

“It’s hard not to be contagious about it,” Dobbins said, “because it’s just so rewarding, and the families are so grateful and working with Ashley and the volunteers is so rewarding that it’s just really hard not to share what all’s going on. It’s just an amazing spot.”