Sally Klein has been a pioneering leader in central Pennsylvania policymaking, human services, and nonprofits for decades.
Since joining the Homeland Board of Trustees around 2015, she has come to know and admire another landmark institution deeply rooted in community care.
“It is amazing to me to watch a group of very diverse people who like each other, and who work well with each other,” she said. “They’re part of the Homeland mission, which is to provide the best service possible to the people that we take care of.”
Klein is perhaps best known as the former chair of the Dauphin County Board of Commissioners. Her resume of community leadership is stocked with board membership for organizations that directly touch and uplift countless lives – United Way of the Capital Region, Boys Club Harrisburg, Mental Health Association of Dauphin & Perry Counties, Harrisburg Area Community College, Habitat for Humanity, Dauphin County Library System, Open Stage of Harrisburg, Keystone Human Services.
Klein hesitated to join another board when the Homeland invitation arrived, but she knew President/CEO Barry Ramper II from his previous work turning around a floundering county nursing home. She recognized that Homeland leadership, including the trustees, enforces the mission “with a lot of kindness and strength. I have believed all my life that any organization is only as good as its leadership.”
The board nominating committee, which Klein has chaired for eight years, searches out high-caliber trustees who pledge to retain or improve Homeland’s mission. The committee takes its responsibility “very seriously,” she said.
“The mission reflects the residents and why they want to be here, why they’ve chosen Homeland over a multitude of other facilities,” she said. “They do so because they know the people who are living here are respected. We want them to enjoy their stay here. They choose Homeland because they know that it will be a positive experience.”
Klein’s career in public service started in the classroom, as a second-grade teacher in Harrisburg. She married attorney Joseph A. Klein and left the job while they had their two children, a son and a daughter.
When the youngest was in second grade, she considered returning to teaching, but her husband suggested she run for the open seat of Dauphin County register of wills/clerk of the orphans’ court division.
As she ran for office and then won the election in 1983, she discovered she enjoyed meeting people along the way. Four years later, she accepted the county Republican Party’s request to run for county commissioner, and she became the first – and so far, only — woman to chair the Board of Commissioners, a seat she held for a total of eight years during her service from 1987 to 2000.
Klein and her fellow commissioners adhered strictly to the Pennsylvania County Code, avoiding “anything that even had a hint of impropriety” while embracing innovations that benefited the community.
She sees that same spirit on the Homeland Board of Trustees.
“We never had a problem doing the right thing, and at Homeland, it’s exactly the same atmosphere,” she said. The trustees are hands-on, taking time to help guide Homeland policy, planning, and fundraising.
“We are all extremely involved in every aspect of the organization,” she said.
Members of the Board of Managers, Homeland’s unique, all-women board responsible for maintaining Homeland’s home-like feel, are also “amazing women,” Klein said. “I will tell you; they work so hard. I’ve often said that the managers are the ones who put in the time.”
For Homeland’s future, Klein expects the nominating committee to uphold its tradition of finding trustees committed to shepherding and protecting Homeland so it can continue to be the home of choice for residents.
Homeland’s exceptionality is evident in a rarity in nursing facilities, Klein notes – three consecutive deficiency-free Department of Health inspections. Inspectors’ job is to look for problems, and they usually find them – but not at Homeland.
“That’s the kind of place we have here for our people,” Klein said. “It’s an honor to be a trustee. It’s working with people who are so dedicated. It’s tough in life to find a facility in which you’re involved that you’re very proud to be a part of, and I’m proud to be part of Homeland.”
Homeland Center (www.homelandcenter.org) offers levels of care including personal care, memory care, skilled nursing and rehabilitation. Homeland also provides hospice, home care, home health and palliative care services to serve the diverse and changing needs of families throughout central Pennsylvania. For more information or to arrange a tour, please call 717-221-7900.
