How Danielle Steel Channeled Grief into Helping the Homeless and Mentally Ill (Exclusive)

Author Danielle Steel is the mother of nine, and proud of every one of her children. “They are all very serious, hard workers, apply themselves to their jobs and take their jobs very seriously,” she told PEOPLE for a story in this week’s print issue. “I really enjoy my kids.”

When she talks about how much pride and joy her kids bring her, Steel always take care to include her late son Nick Traina, who died by suicide in 1997 at age 19. Nick lived with bipolar disorder and Steel calls him, “just an amazing person.” She adds: “He was a very happy person and very funny.”

In the wake of that great loss, she wrote His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Traina and used the proceeds from its sales to launch the Nick Traina Foundation in December 1997.

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The foundation’s mission is to “make a meaningful contribution in the field of mental illness,” according to its website. It does so by funding organizations that provide treatment, therapy and support for people living with all forms of mental illness, with a particular focus on young people.

“Organizations providing hands-on assistance to mentally ill people, and their families, are key to helping these people lead safe, happy and productive lives,” the website states. “Our goal is to provide help wherever we can and can make a difference.”

Steel says her intention in starting the foundation was twofold: to honor Nick’s memory and to help people who love someone living with mental illness. “When he died, I wanted to do good things for other people,” she explains, adding that there was also “the hope thing.”

“I wanted to encourage people either who had bipolar or who loved somebody, had a child or a spouse, or a friend who had bipolar… because he was actually a very inspiring person.”

About two years later, Steel also launched another organization, Yo! Angel! to address a need she saw all around her in San Francisco, where she lived at the time.

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“I was in church praying, and I thought, ‘Who can I help? Who’s feeling more miserable than I am? And what came to me was to help the homeless,” she says.

For 11 years while she was still based in San Francisco, Steel and a team of volunteers distributed clothing and supplies to unhoused people, eventually serving roughly 3,000 people in need a year. What started as Steel keeping some warm clothes in her car grew into a “very sophisticated” team running four vans stocked with clothes in a range of sizes, sleeping bags, tools and other supplies to meet the needs of people who were living on the street.

“I was really scared at first,” Steel admits, of the hands-on work she did. “And there was some very funny experiences. Nobody knew it was me…. We would just show up and say, ‘Do you need stuff? We have stuff for you.’ It was one of the best experiences of my life.”

When reflecting on why she decided to address this particular need, Steel thinks it comes back to her instincts as a parent.

“I guess it’s the mother in me,” she says. “All I could do was to keep them alive, dry and comfortable and warm until somebody more professional could bring them help because they needed extensive medical care. Most of them needed psychiatric care. They needed housing. I couldn’t provide any of that, [but] I wanted them to be warm and dry while they waited for help to come.”