About PUEBLO
PUEBLO's Board and Staff
PUEBLO is a multi-issue community membership organization located at 3528 Foothill Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94601. Its mission is to advocate for the needs of low-income residents of Oakland, most of them people of color, by grassroots organizing, offering leadership training and initiating policy reform.
PUEBLO has won reforms in the areas of public health, education, living wage, environmental justice and youth development, as well as public safety. Among its most notable achievements, PUEBLO initiated the Alameda County Lead-Poisoning Prevention Program that offers free lead screening to low-income cities in Alameda County. That program became a national model, and one of our members is the community representative who sits of the Board that oversees its operation.
PUEBLO initiated its Campaign for Community Safety and Police Accountability, in response to outreach efforts that identified police misconduct as a major concern. Working with the ACLU and the American Friends' Service Committee, PUEBLO sponsored a public hearing on Police Accountability that resulted in an Ordinance strengthening Oakland's Citizens' Police Review Board. PUEBLO introduced a Risk Management strategy which was adopted by the City Council that aimed to make the Oakland Police Department financially accountable for the exposure to costly law suits that resulted from police abuse. And PUEBLO conducted a survey in conjunction with the City of Oakland, which collected data from 1000 Oakland residents who were asked about their recent interactions with Oakland police officers.
PUEBLO initiated a pilot project called Urban Youth Harvest, a public-private collaboration with Mayor Dellums' Office of Sustainability, the Mayor's Commission on Aging, and the Alameda County Health Department. This program was intended to address two pressing problems in our community: the need for jobs for young people and the need for fresh produce for low-income seniors. The program employs young people to harvest the extra produce offered by many homeowners and deliver it to our low-income seniors – usually within an hour or less of its being on the tree!
Although the pilot project lasted only three weeks, and operated in conjunction with an outstanding youth services provider, Youth Uprising, the program gave the organization a focus for its advocacy and a generated a great deal of enthusiasm in the community. In the summer of 2008, it was greatly expanded, attracting interns and collaborations with several organizations including the HOPE collaborative, the People's Grocery and Oakland Berkeley Urban Garden (OBUG). PUEBLO was able to raise funds from the community to support this program, and our fruit donors tripled! That program has recently been expanded. Youth Greening Oakland is a collaboration with the City of Oakland's Parks and Recreation Department, the HOPE Collaborative and the Oakland Unified School District and includes not only gleaning but also neighborhood mapping and outreach, stewardship of under-served parks, the planting of trees and community gardens and culinary arts.
This year, PUEBLO is launching its Oakland Young Policy Builders Program in conjunction with the Oakland Chapter of Concerned Black Men. This group of Oakland youth will look at research data, use critical thinking to interpret the data and come to findings, and consider policy reform initiatives that should be implemented to address the issues inherent in the study. They will learn advocacy skills including persuasive communication and community organizing and will initiate a campaign to win reforms in policy areas that affect their lives.
We are grateful for the ongoing support of foundations and the community, and are particularly proud of the Proclamation we received from former Mayor Ronald Dellums, honoring PUEBLO for its contributions to the community and proclaiming November 8th PUEBLO DAY in Oakland!
