a) that's awesome of you to help people. It can be very overwhelming for the normies (hi, I'm a normie!)!
b) I have sold Steem for cash directly through Paypal with a couple of other Steemians who wanted to power up when I needed money for bills. This exchange is of course dependent on me knowing/trusting them somewhat, and that it's never a large amount of Steem from my end. I'd like to power up too but kitties gotta eat and I'm poor, so I only sell when I really need the cash.
If you'd like to be one of the people I message when I need to do this, I'd be happy to sell it to you rather than lose a few bucks in fees. Just let me know and I'll message you on Discord to see if you're buying when I need to sell a bit. :)