Len Marbella and Margie Pettibone From Catholic Charities
Our headline speakers for December 2, 2021, were Len Marabella, Chief Executive Officer for Catholic Charities and Margie Pettibone, Director of Development for Catholic Charities. Len has a PhD in Physical Chemistry, did post-doctoral work at MIT, and worked for many years in the aerospace and laser industries. Margie has an MBA from Notre Dame and studied at the London Business School concentrating on international marketing. Len started out doing volunteer work for Catholic Charities, joined the Board of Directors, and ultimately became the full-time CEO after having served for three months as Interim CEO. He’s been the CEO since 2014. He says it’s the best job he’s ever had!
Santa Rosa’s Catholic Charities serves the entire North Bay all the way to Del Norte County, although it concentrates on Sonoma, Napa, Lake, and Mendocino Counties. It is grounded in the priorities of the Catholic faith, including the goal of serving vulnerable people of all faiths, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. In other words, Catholic Charities helps people in need. It has more than 200 staff members and 500 volunteers, with a $20 million budget.
Its key programs include Homelessness and Housing Solutions, Immigration, and Financial Stability & Crisis Response. The Homeless program conducts outreach to homeless camps and works to help the homeless obtain emergency and more permanent housing. They work on housing placement and support services. The program has found permanent housing for over 650 people this year! The Immigration program sees 3-4 thousand people each year. It employs 9 government certified paralegals who work with applicants for a variety of programs, including applications for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), naturalization, and refugee programs, as well as advising people who have no legal path to citizenship. They helped with 579 applications for DACA status last year. The Financial Stability & Crisis Response program is designed to work with people who face financial and personal obstacles due crises, such as fires. It has helped people with contributions of $1,429,658 for rental, auto repair, home repair, and basic needs assistance.
Len also introduced us to Caritas Village, a new center for Catholic Charity’s work. The Village will include Caritas Center and Caritas Homes. The Village is located on and adjacent to the old hospital on Morgan Street in downtown Santa Rosa. The Center is expected to open in the summer of 2022, while the Village will open in 2023. The Center will include a Family Shelter, Children’s Resource Center, Housing Placement Center, Dignity Drop-in Center, a Medical Clinic and Respite Care. The drop-in center will help homeless and other underserved people on a daily basis and is expected to serve 200 people/day. The medical clinic will be operated by Santa Rosa Community Health. Once completed, Caritas Homes will provide 128 apartments for affordable permanent housing for working singles, vulnerable seniors, veterans, and families whose income can’t keep up with the current rental market.
Len also gave a strong shout-out to Jon and Terry Stark, who have been strong backers of Catholic Charities for many years! Thank you, Len, and Margie for your wonderful presentation and for all the work you do for our community. Our congratulations to you both for the fantastic progress of Caritas Village. Your hard work and dedication will add so much to our community!
