Petaluma People Services Center executive director launches new programs during pandemic

Elece Hempel was forced to confront a difficult reality many successful businesspeople have faced when she picked her son up from school one day.

She was so unfamiliar to office staff that they asked to see her ID before she could leave with her fourth-grade boy.

Hempel, 59, now the executive director for Petaluma People Services Center, was stunned. The pace and allure of her work in San Francisco nearly two decades ago had made her a distant figure in parts of her child’s life.

“For somebody who so loves people, I didn’t even know the people guiding the future of my family,” Hempel recalled. “It was shocking to me.”

It was a moment that splintered her career. For years, Hempel built a reputation throughout the West Coast as someone who could help private startups realize lucrative initial public offerings. Her commutes sometimes included chartered flights. She had business dealings with people like Vice President Al Gore, dot-com entrepreneur David Hayden and TV writer Norman Lear.

But that day at her son’s school humbled her, Hempel said. She turned her attention to her immediate community in Petaluma, and over the last 16 years, helped grow PPSC into a rigid backbone for some of the most vulnerable residents in southern Sonoma County.

Through natural disasters, a recession and now a global pandemic, the nonprofit has consistently been on the front lines of the relief effort, mobilizing hundreds of volunteers and launching emergency programs to address any gaps that arise. The coronavirus outbreak that has gut-punched the global economy and caused an array of hardships for people worldwide is no different.

PPSC has adapted several senior services to aid the Petaluma population most susceptible to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus. Programs that provide hot meals daily have gone mobile; volunteer ride services have expanded to help seniors stay indoors; and new initiatives, like “You Are Not Alone,” are ensuring no one feels isolated - all while maintaining the 60 total programs under the PPSC banner.

“We’re never really sure how she does what she does,” PPSC board member Katherine Wells said of Hempel. “It’s like there’s a clone of her. She’s at all the meetings and events in the community. It’s the effort she puts in the rest of the year that makes her successful in moments like this.”

PPSC on Monday launched a service to help the growing number of people who lost their jobs and have never sought out unemployment benefits. The agency’s staff is now helping callers complete their applications, and navigate the resources available for anyone under financial strain.

The Petaluma nonprofit has also molded its senior cafe to offer curbside pickup, and created the “You Are Not Alone” program, which provides daily prompts to volunteers who call elderly residents who are missing that sense of community during the stay-at-home order.

Hempel expects the demand for those and several other long-standing initiatives to increase as the impacts from the coronavirus shutdown continue to take shape, she said. Mental health counseling has shifted to a phone service through the Mary Isaak Center. Petaluma Bounty Farm food distribution, which provides fresh produce to low-?income residents, is increasing its outreach. Calls to the fair housing program amid the growing uncertainties when it comes to paying rent have skyrocketed. Every program is offered in Spanish, too.

Hempel credits her staff of more than 70 people, many of whom act like they run their own individual nonprofit, for the nimble approach whenever the Petaluma community is experiencing a crisis, she said.

Petaluma Mayor Teresa Barrett echoed that sentiment, and said she is more at ease knowing the community has the infrastructure in place with nonprofits like PPSC that always step up when a disaster strikes.

“It is remarkable how they just keep evolving. They’re not stuck in one paradigm,” Barrett said. “(Hempel) brings the same energy to that as she probably did to closing multi-million dollar deals. And quite frankly, this is more important. This is about real human interaction.”

Hempel said PPSC has the ability to stay agile in moments of hardship thanks to a recurring question that drives her: “How hard could it be?”

“The conversation of community is not the ubran growth boundary,” she said. “It’s recognizing your community is who you’re with. If everybody in your community is cared for, the world is a better place.”

You can reach Staff Writer Yousef Baig at 707-521-5390 or yousef.baig@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @YousefBaig.