When Elece Hempel, the Executive Director of Petaluma People Services Center (PPSC), first realized the pandemic would impact the organization’s services, she met with seniors who frequent their Senior Café. Although she assured them meals would still be available (through pick-up instead of in the...
When Legal Aid of Sonoma County set out to assist residents of the Journey's End mobile home park after the 2017 fires, they didn't realize how much of a fight they'd be in for. Achieving a settlement for their clients was a lengthy and arduous...
Founded in 1971 by physicians concerned about migrant healthcare, Healdsburg’s Alliance Medical Center now has four healthcare clinics in Healdsburg and Windsor. Annually, they provide medical, dental, behavioral, and wellness services to over 12,000 patients in the region. “The great majority of our patients are the...
Erica Diamond began volunteering with California Homemakers Association ten years ago after witnessing the problems and suffering in Sonoma County’s low-income communities. “I wanted to do everything that I can to address the root causes of poverty,” she says. “And I found that CHA was organizing the low-income...
Since March, Community Foundation Sonoma County has granted more than $4.6 million to support nonprofit organizations responding to coronavirus. When the coronavirus pandemic struck Sonoma County in March 2020, Community Foundation Sonoma County (CFSC) and our donors immediately responded, making significant grants to help support the...
Like all organizations working with our local houseless community, Catholic Charities continues finding temporary and permanent housing for hundreds of people in Sonoma County, despite the added challenge of the COVID pandemic. “I consider us as kind of the bridge from homelessness to housing,” says Catholic...
From shifting toward Zoom and telephone appointments, to setting up virus testing clinics, Sonoma County’s health centers have handled the sudden changes brought on by the COVID pandemic like the champions they are. In addition to the large healthcare centers, smaller community clinics that serve...
For more than two decades Santa Rosa Community Health (SRCH) has provided physical and mental health services to Sonoma County’s low-income population. The organization has eight clinics across Santa Rosa, which includes a campus for dental services, and a site that serves unhoused people. According...
Until late January 2020, a community of nearly 250 unhoused people lived in tents along a 2-mile stretch of the Joe Rodota Trail, an eight-mile bike and pedestrian path that runs west from Santa Rosa to neighboring Sebastopol. Declared a public health crisis, the County...
In ancient Rome, Ceres was the goddess of agriculture and offered blessings to farmers and their annual harvests, ensuring communities had enough to eat. Today in Sonoma County, Ceres Community Project is known for something similar: blessing those in need with hearty and healthy meal...