Editor’s note: Each month, The Munising Beacon and the Roam Community Foundation recognize a local individual whose actions help build a stronger, more connected community through the Roam for Good Award. This story originally appeared in December 2025, when Stephanie Moore was honored for her holiday giving and kindness initiatives — quiet, consistent acts of generosity that brought meals, gifts and dignity to families across Alger County when they needed them most.
By Brad Gischia
Beacon Correspondent
December’s Roam for Good Award winner knows how to help. She also knows how to keep it on the down-low.
Roam for Good is the award given to Alger County residents for leadership and dedication to making the community stronger. Stephanie Moore has made giving a way of life.
Moore was the originator of a program called Christmas for Kiddos during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was not her first foray into the field of giving.
“Four or five years before I started the Christmas program, I started a free Thanksgiving dinner,” she said. “I was at a Kiwanis meeting when they decided that they couldn’t offer their meal any longer. I went home that day, and I thought about all of the people who needed that meal, and decided that I would take it on myself.”
With a mere three weeks before the holiday that year, Moore marshaled the troops, calling on local businesses to make donations and created the meals in the basement of the Presbyterian Church.
When she stopped doing that dinner, the group that she had organized was making and delivering 400 dinners out of the high school cafeteria.
And a beautiful thing happened. People found out that giving is fun.
“It became a very social thing,” Moore said. “People would come in and do the work, but found out it was a pretty fun time as well.”
Moore has two sons and no extended family in the area.
“For the longest time, I felt bad because my kids didn’t really know what it was like to have a big family dinner,” she said. “But they would come and help. My oldest was in football, and we had the whole football team there helping. It was an adventure.”
Moore’s drive to make her community a better place comes from knowing firsthand the trouble people might be in.
“When my youngest son was born disabled [he has Waardenburg Syndrome], there were a lot of appointments and running down to the University of Michigan,” she said. “I was broke, and it was hard to work. It just turned my world upside down.”
She recalled one Christmas in particular, as she was starting over following a divorce.
“We were in this little apartment that barely had heat, and I went to the Salvation Army and to DHS, and I felt so dehumanized,” she said. “They were asking for so much information — pay statements and child support orders. It was a lot. That Christmas there was nothing under the tree, and we shared two cans of ravioli for dinner.”
Moore made a vow that she would never let anyone feel like that if she could help it. She would give out groceries around the DHS office around Christmas. No questions other than, “Do you need some groceries?”
“Everyone needs help,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO of a company, or just had a run of bad luck. Everyone needs something sometimes.”
It became a way of life for her family, and she’s spread it into the community as well.
“There seems like there’s been a downslide in volunteers,” Moore said. “You don’t have to volunteer with a program — you can go out and start your own.”
So after handing off the Thanksgiving program, Moore decided to focus on Christmas and began with the community that had built up her dinner program. She got donations from local businesses, and those donations went to giving presents and food to families in need.
“During COVID, the DHS offices in Alger County were all shut down,” Moore said. “Anybody who was in need of help had to go through Marquette County or through the Salvation Army. It seemed really unfair that all the kids in the area didn’t have access to any of the services they needed.”
Moore saw the need, and instead of throwing her lot in with an existing charity, began her own.
“I think Christmas for Kiddos had 50 families the first year,” she said. “Last year, we had 80.”
The need is there, and the Munising community has risen to the challenge. This year was bittersweet for Moore, who has moved to Marquette for work and no longer runs either program.
“I will always have a spot in my heart for Munising,” she said. “I lived there for 18 years. They helped me raise my children. I couldn’t have asked for a better place for them. The businesses, the community members — they are a truly amazing community.”
It’s a theme that comes up again and again in the Munising area.
“There are so many good people out there that do things all the time for others,” Moore said. “We don’t celebrate them enough.”
Moore said she didn’t want any recognition, but hopes that her story might inspire others to give back.
“It costs absolutely nothing to be a good person,” she said.