PEDROTTI DIRECTS $30,000 TO PROJECT
Funds nonprofit's leader
It may be March, but to Francie McInerney-MacMillan, it was as if Vallejo Together had a visit from Santa Claus when Gene Pedrotti dropped a surprise $30,000 donation on the homeless advocate nonprofit.
“A Christmas present,” McInerney-MacMillan said, apparently convincing the owner of Pedrotti’s ACE in Benicia “that we’re doing good things.”
The money will pay for a yetto-be-hired part-time executive director for one year, said McInerney-MacMillan, who has filled the role as a volunteer executive director for two years.
The paid part-time executive should be hired by this summer “and it’s not going to be me,” said McInerney-MacMillan said, preferring a program manager title and leaving the administrative responsibilities, grant writing duties “and all the stuff you’re up to 2 in the morning doing” to the future director.
Pedrotti said he wanted to “give back” where he could “make a big difference” to a nonprofit after his hardware store enjoyed a banner year during the pandemic.
“Obviously, especially with COVID, there’s a lot of destitution out there with the homeless,” Pedrotti said. “And since our ‘market’ is bigger than Benicia, I thought we should reach out to Vallejo and make a substation bump” with a significant donation.
After meeting with McInerney-MacMillan and hearing Vallejo Together’s needs, “it was very clear they are just struggling under the weight of their mission,” Pedrotti said, recommending to the five-person Vallejo Together board “that you can’t take on everybody’s burden.”
“They have a lot on their plate,” Pedrotti said, soon understanding that McInerney-MacMillan “prefers to be out in the field, and right now, a lot of her work is administration.”
Pedrotti scrutinized the Vallejo Together organization and various projects and programs that needed funding and announced during the nonprofit’s March 5 Zoom board meeting he was donating the $30,000.
Weighing all options of where the cash from the Gene R. Pedrotti Charitable Trust should go, McInerney-McMillan proposed the part-time executive director position.
“I know what it’s like to grow an organization,” said Pedrotti, who started the Junior Lions Club in Crockett when he was in high school. While at the University of California at Berkeley, Pedrotti started the Crockett Chamber of Commerce.
“I know how hard it is when you’re not paying people,” he said. “I think I’m keen to what they’re trying to accomplish.”
Before Pedrotti committed the money, “I just wanted to understand what the organization is about,” he said. “The first thing I did was look online and their website is terrible.”
“I think he was concerned we were doing too many things,” said McInerney-MacMillan.
She explained the programs and projects, including showers, feeding the homeless, finding temporary housing, partnerships with churches and other nonprofits, and “it pointed to the obviously much-needed effort going on that’s important to foster right now,” Pedrotti said.
Owner of the ACE that celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2022, Pedrotti said he’s heard the stereotyping of the homeless and those securing affordable housing, “that they’re all drug addicts and that’s B.S.,” he said. “Stereotyping is wrong.”
Pedrotti said that he was immediately impressed with MacInerney-MacMillan’s focus and energy “and all in the interest of helping others, which, to me, is very saintly. She’s engaged in such honorable work. At the same time, I could sense her being overwhelmed, which is almost too much of a burden. And if they want to grow the organization, they need to start working on the foundation and get the organization stable.”
Pedrotti acknowledged the bumpy road of keeping Vallejo Together together following the absence and then May 7 death of its founder, Maria Guevara.
“You have to do what you need to do for the continuity of the organization while under the burden of COVID. But it has to be done,” Pedrotti advised. “You’re building that foundation you so desperately need.”
And the future of the executive editor’s position?
“We’ll see what happens next year. Part of the fun of being executive director is that part of your job is making sure you get a salary,” McInerney-MacMillan said.
She knows who it won’t be.
“I never wanted it to be my job,” McInerney-MacMillan said.
For more information: www.facebook.com/vallejotogether/