About 150 students gathered on Scripps College’s Bowling Green Lawn for the first Power Organizing Web (POW) Community Fair on Oct. 23. The POW acronym was originally created for an online network map that connects students, faculty, courses, alumni and organizations; the fair was organized to be a physical representation of this map.
The fair aimed to promote what students described as the inter-connected nature of social action at the 5Cs and was sponsored by Scripps’ new Community Engagement and Partnership Center (CEPC), along with student groups Power, Justice and the Environment (PJE) and 5C Environmental Justice (5CEJ).
Students in Power, Justice, and the Environment — a Scripps politics course that Thomas Kim, an associate professor of politics and director of the CEPC, teaches — organized the fair. The class split into three working groups: landscaping, workshops, and interning.
While the landscaping group collaborated on the interactive online POW map, the workshops group hosted the community fair and complementary POW talk, along with other social justice events like a sustainable food systems workshop and a how-to canvas training and voting party. The interning group worked with Alliance for Community Transit–Los Angeles (ACT-LA), which brings together nearly 50 social justice organizations to advocate for equitable and sustainable housing and public transit.
Workshops group members said the fair helped bring POW to life.
“The idea for this fair came from a need to have this kind of map in person,” Charlotte Mendelson PZ ’29, a workshops group member, said. “So what our goal was is to take all these organizations, all these people on this map, and bring them together, so people could build power, talk to each other.”
The event began with a presentation at the Scripps Student Union introducing the POW map, explaining how individuals and organizations involved in community organizing can stay connected.
“When you really look at the people, students, organizations, faculty, alumni, or organizations that you haven’t really tapped into at the 5C level, it just becomes a lot more easy to build power and connection and unionize, and if anything, you’re also able to build more attendance [at events], and a lot more networking [can occur],” Daniel Sanchez-Abarca PZ ’29, a member of the landscaping group, said.
Following the talk, 18 5C organizations and clubs and four off-campus groups tabled to meet students and share the work that they do. Kaylee Beam, program coordinator with CEPC, hoped the fair would be especially helpful for underclassmen who were unsure about how to get involved.
“There’s so much organizing work happening across the 5Cs, but people aren’t necessarily aware of it, and so an event like this is important because it [gives] the POW map … physical form,” Beam said. “So it’s like, ‘How can we get all of these organizations in the same physical space? How can we help them interface with students and help students who are new to campus or interested in this work but not sure how to get involved?’”
The CEPC began operating two months ago to provide support for campus organizations, help students build their organizing skills and bring the broader Scripps community together to enact social change. CEPC faculty want students interested in certain topics to know that there is probably already a community out there that shares similar passions.
“It’s really important … I think for me to sort of communicate that we don’t need to be building everything all the time,” Kim said. “There’s actually stuff that’s already been built, and part of what we want to do is actually show what those things are that have been built, so that people can make the connections.”
Students representing local nonprofits tabled at the fair, including Diana Morales PO ’29, a volunteer for Gente Organizada. The nonprofit in Pomona fights for social, economic and racial justice through policy campaigns and coalition building. Morales said that participating in the organization’s events exposes 5C students to challenges the surrounding community faces and how Gente Organizada is trying to alleviate them.
“In general, it’s just a good way … to get your foot in the door, because they give you advice on how to do it [organize] safely for not just yourself, but the people around you,” Morales said.
At the People of Color Outside (POCO) table, students were invited to write down why POCO, an outdoor educational club that aims to make outdoor spaces fun and accessible to people of color, and similar clubs matter. Linsey Wong PO ’27, who works with the club, said the activity encouraged students to reflect on their relationship with the outdoors.
“It’s kind of just a way to reflect on what community means and what the outdoors and inclusivity means to a lot of people … and it’s really sweet reading their messages … [POCO is] really special to everyone,” Wong said.
Looking ahead, Jocelyn Cho PO ’28 hopes the POW will become a more accessible resource for students seeking opportunities in social activism at the 5Cs. She compared her vision for the map to Hyperschedule, a widely used course-planning website created by students and for students.
“Our vision is [to] have like a resource that students can use like Hyperschedule, but for organizing, where they can just kind of go and see the kinds of organizations and connections that they can be a part of,” Cho said.
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