WHO
WE ARE

Co-Founder/Executive Director

Providing excellent care for children living with serious-illness and those facing the end-of-life is Margy’s passion. From the beginning of her career at UCSF through decades in pediatric home health, Margy recognized the unique ability of children living with complex or serious illness to thrive when surrounded with a community of care. In 2005, with a vision to offer excellent medical care to all children at a very low overhead, Margy co-founded Coastal Kids Home Care. Since opening its doors, Coastal Kids has provided more than 76,000 in-home nursing visits to 9,900 children in Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Santa Clara Counties. 

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Each day, Margy ensures that each child Coastal Kids serves is a priority. As the organization has grown to offer more services, she has stayed consistent in her resolve to provide excellent care for individual children, but also to improve the healthcare landscape for all children. She is a trainer for the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC), speaks at conferences on pediatric palliative care and has mentored countless pediatric nurses throughout her thirty-year career. 

Under Margy’s leadership, Coastal Kids Home Care has developed a pioneering home-based pediatric palliative care program which surrounds families with compassionate care throughout the course of their child’s illness. The flexibility of the home health palliative care allows the level of in-home care to ebb and flow with the acuity of a child’s illness. This model has been adapted by Margy and her team to respond to the unique needs of each child and their caregivers resulting in a cost-effective program that offers excellent care for children and families today and a replicable model for other communities. 

As Coastal Kids Home Care looks to the future, Margy will continue to prioritize excellent care for our community’s most vulnerable children.