Pitzer College
EN-9: Community Partnerships

Ontario Wheelhouse The Wheelhouse is a bicycle cooperative founded in 2010 at the Pitzer in Ontario (PIO) House. During peak seasons, the Wheelhouse serves 100 people per month and maintains several programs through community partnerships. Participants include house-less individuals, immigrant workers, and youth, most of whom are low-income. Services include build-a-bike programs, bike safety and maintenance education. Doors are open to the public three days per week for free instruction and bike maintenance, with specialized programs taking place outside of regular Wheelhouse hours. PIO interns for the Wheelhouse assist Urban Fellow Erin Gurley (Wheelhouse Coordinator) to staff Wheelhouse shifts, and to conduct outreach at several locations, including Department of Parks and Rec for a youth build-a-bike program, the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center, and the STRIVE center for holistic healing. Students conduct safety or maintenance workshops, create promotional materials for the Wheelhouse, and coordinate events. Interns attend meetings with regional bike advocacy groups and coalitions. Research includes mapping and community-based planning efforts around bike facilities development in the City of Ontario.

While the warehouse workers of the Inland Empire play a crucial role in our global economy,they often work for temp agencies and endure severe injustices. Warehouse Workers United is a labor organizing group working to fight for better jobs, higher wages, affordable healthcare, better working conditions, and the freedom to choose a union. Past PIO interns have collected data to help WWU build a case against wage theft from warehouse workers and a white paper documenting deplorable working conditions in Inland Empire warehouses. Interns will attend worker meetings and actions, act as liaisons between WWU and Pitzer College, help WWU organizers collect data for their organizing efforts, and help provide services such as English language classes to the warehouse worker community served by WWU. Research will help WWU collect data for their policy and legislative work to better working conditions for warehouse workers.

Huerta del Valle Huerta del Valle is a community garden and urban agriculture project in Ontario that has grown out of collaboration between the Pitzer in Ontario program and community members. The project is supported by the City of Ontario and a partnership of organizations working to improve community health through comprehensive environmental, educational, policy and promotional strategies. The Huerta del Valle project offers interns a diverse range of opportunities including community organizing; outreach and promotion; urban farming; setup, support and maintenance of community plots; documentation; story-gathering and blogging. Research will focus on the experiences of participants in the community garden and may be used to evaluate success of the project for grant funding purposes, to publicize and promote Huerta del Valle and/or to affect policy decisions regarding local food systems.

The aforementioned sustainability partnerships are projects of Pitzer in Ontario, a justice-oriented, interdisciplinary program in urban studies and community-based research. With theoretical foundations in the social sciences and a strong emphasis on experiential education, the program allows students to understand regional impacts of globalization and to engage in local social change efforts. These efforts are informed by long-standing relationships with community organizations, city agencies, and non-profits, and also by Ontario’s community organizing wing, which works with local youth organizers to identify and address pressing community issues. Pitzer in Ontario students can pick from several applied, long-term action research opportunities to fulfill their 150-hour internship requirement. Students may participate in a PIO-initiated project or work with an established group that organizes and conducts campaigns to improve local communities.