Climate Resilience Environmental Education Center (CREEC) at Hahamongna Watershed Park

Green space, park access, and trees

San Gabriel Valley South LA East LA Central LA County of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a countywide benefit) San Fernando Valley

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

The environmental/conservation movements will not succeed if we do not engage, educate, and franchise an ethnically diverse, younger audience that is reflective of the American demographic. Not everyone has been welcomed in America’s Great Outdoors. Current Bureau of Land Management data indicates a deep inequality in the ethnic and racial mix of visitors to our public lands. African Americans comprise only 1 to 1.2 percent of all visitors and Latinx people fall between 3.8 and 6.7 percent. All BIPOC groups are also significantly underrepresented in the conservation fields. Recent research from the Outdoor Industry Association has disclosed that the outdoor industry generates nearly 578,000 jobs in California and spends nearly $30 billion in wages and salaries, but the industry is nearly 85% white.
With a focus on promoting greater diversity in those who visit and manage our natural landscapes, OBA's goal is to bring a level of ethnic proportionality to the entire outdoor workforce.

CREEC is an critical component of OBA's dedication to ensuring that parks and other wilderness spaces are relevant to all people, especially the thousands of OBA participants from disadvantaged communities in the greater Los Angeles area.
CREEC integrates sustainable workforce development with ecological revitalization of the Arroyo Seco Watershed through the adaptive reuse of an abandoned US Forest Service compound, including 6 buildings on 6.65 acres. OBA and partners will run an innovative training center on-site that provides paid, on-the-job training for careers in conservation and restoration, utilizing the landscape and architectural restoration of the site, and the entire Arroyo Seco, as a world-class learning laboratory. CREEC will be a hub for programming, and its conservation workforce training and place-based ecological education will serve the greater Los Angeles area, and locally serve the San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, fire-impacted communities in Altadena and Northwest Pasadena, as well as disadvantaged communities of color from South and East Los Angeles.
CREEC will help strengthen the connection between underserved and overlooked populations and nature, develop environmental leadership skills, and build a land-based education pedigree, so important to entering the conservation arena within communities that have historically been absent. OBA will develop CREEC pursuant to the City of Pasadena’s Master Plan.

Los Angeles will have a premier LEED-certified environmental education center that houses classrooms, science labs, exhibit spaces, an auditorium, outdoor amphitheater, offices for resident and partner organizations, and dormitories and a commercial kitchen to serve as a base for overnight programs; An outstanding series of culturally-relevant year-round programs designed to facilitate outdoor exploration; BIPOC teams with the hands-on experience/training and depth of knowledge to actively participate in conservation, fire and climate resilience, and environmental restoration efforts as real and knowledgeable agents of change.