Footsteps provides educational, vocational, social and emotional support to young Jews who have decided to leave the insular ultra-Orthodox world in which they were raised. These young people are economically disenfranchised: most enter mainstream society without marketable skills or even the basic education necessary to secure jobs and become economically independent. Footsteps provides them with the necessary vocational, educational, and emotional tools they need to begin to acclimate to the modern, secular world. Perhaps counter-intuitively, Footsteps participants also need assistance connecting to modern Jewish life. Although they have been immersed in a particular Jewish experience, Footsteps participants, like many unaffiliated Jews, have not been exposed to the wide spectrum of Jewish experiences. They have not explored what it means to be Jewish on their own terms, or how they can participate in Jewish life outside of ultra-orthodoxy. Footsteps strives to keep these young Jews from leaving Jewish life behind altogether by exposing them to warm and welcoming alternative forms of Jewish experience.

Natan's grant to Footsteps supports the creation of a drop-in computer lab with internet access and online GED and vocational training courses. The grant will also send a core group of Footsteps participants to Limmud, a three-day, pluralistic Jewish retreat; this group will then be responsible for creating Jewish programming for other Footsteps participants throughout the year that is sensitive to their backgrounds and to their current feelings about participating in Jewish life.