A nonprofit serving children with pediatric illnesses and their families celebrates an expansion.

The majority of children served by Coastal Kids Home Care receive care in their homes—many have pediatric medical needs that are complex and need at-home nursing or case management.

But hundreds also receive care onsite at the Rodgers Center for Children’s Health that opened in 2022, and that celebrates an expansion and remodel with an open house on Friday, June 5. The occasion also marks the nonprofit’s 20th anniversary from when it was started by a pediatric nurse in Salinas.

It’s since expanded to serve children with home-health services in San Benito, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties, and has a pending application with the California Department of Health Services to expand even further.

“When I started we had seven employees 14 years ago,” says Development Director Kelli Mullen Brown. “Today we have 201. All of our services are very demand-driven; we hire as we see a need.”

Those needs have continued to focus on home health care for young patients with complex medical conditions. It also includes bereavement support (the nonprofit absorbed the grief counseling organization Papillon Center in 2021, serving all ages). It includes mental health counseling with bilingual counselors serving nearly 200 children ages 5 to 19 last year. And it includes social work and case management for families, as well as physical therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy and more for young patients.

In total, the group served 745 children in Monterey County in 2025.

Now it’s getting ready to cut the ribbon on major renovations (a $1.5 million project) of its Rodgers Health Center, in a building that the organization acquired in 2020 for $1.3 million, thanks in part to a grant from the Central California Alliance on Health, which administers Medi-Cal in the region. The number of counseling rooms has doubled and they are appointed with decorations that are inviting, soothing and fun. The new building also includes specialized physical therapy spaces, complete with a custom-designed playground for occupational therapy. 

All these years later, Coastal Kids remains California’s only in-home pediatric care agency in California. With the exception of counseling services—where therapists are trained to address a specific age group—nobody ages out. Many patients begin a case with Coastal Kids Home Care as infants, and some continue to be impacted by their pediatric diagnosis into adulthood.

“Once a Coastal Kid, always a Coastal Kid,” Mullen Brown says. “We never discharge a patient.”

 Coastal Kids Home Care celebration and open house takes place 4:30-7:30pm on Friday, June 5. Rodgers Center for Children’s Health, 427 Pajaro St., Salinas. Free. (800) 214-5439, coastalkidshomecare.org.