Nonprofit Spotlight: The Pomona Economic Opportunity Center
The Pomona Economic Opportunity Center (P.E.O.C.) was founded on the mission to provide an opportunity for day laborers, household workers, and other low-wage, immigrant workers in Pomona and the Inland Empire find safe work at a fair wage, including expanding a person’s employability by teaching new trades and skills. Beyond helping secure employment, they show people how to advocate for themselves and shape policies that impact their lives and use these organizing skills to help improve the overall conditions for all immigrant workers.
Then hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children began arriving in Pomona.
Children ranging in ages from 7 to 14 years old who had overcome unfathomable hardships traveling alone, began arriving at Fairplex in early May of this year. The children who arrived unaccompanied at the U.S.-Mexico border were to be temporarily housed at Fairplex, which was designated a federal Emergency Intake Site (E.I.S.), as they waited to be reunited with family or placed with sponsors.
A powerful advocate for immigrants, the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center immediately mobilized.