Building bridges in the community

Lolita Harper

WESTSIDE -- It is a bridge of unusual proportions.

Large steel beams are absent from its architecture and are replaced by

a modest room with four bare walls and a couple of desks. Enormous

concrete support pillars are substituted with dedicated individuals.

The UC Irvine Community Outreach Center may differ in structure from

traditional models but its function is the same: to provide a link

between two points -- the university and Costa Mesa’s Westside.

The UCI Community Outreach Partnership Center, at 740 W. Wilson St.,

is a new venture between the university and the Westside community

designed to strengthen the connection between the school and the

community it serves.

Kris Day, the center’s executive director and a professor for the

university’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning, hatched the idea

for the program after extensive work on the Westside with various

classes.

“I initially got involved because I taught a class that did research

on the Westside,” Day said. “As I got more involved, I found that there

were a lot of other professors working independently in the same area.”

The center will make sure professors are working to reinforce each

other and see that the university’s resources are used in the most

effective manner.

University officials chose the most western neighborhood in Costa Mesa

to house the center because of its diverse makeup and the issues present

in the community. Those issues include educational quality, racial

tensions, the overall appearance of the neighborhood and the recent

efforts to improve the area by both the city and residents.

Victor Becerra, the center’s director, is charged with managing

ongoing projects, cultivating new ventures and cultivating funding

sources. One of the collaborative projects involves Keep Costa Mesa

Beautiful -- a campaign to pick up litter on the Westside.

“Our overarching goal is to make Costa Mesa a stronger community, and

we want to do that by helping low-income neighborhoods,” Becerra said.

Manuel Gomez, the vice chancellor of student affairs at UCI, said the

real genius behind the project is the most basic connection between

education and civic well-being.

“We cannot enjoy one investment without the other,” he said.

Gomez said the center is about recognizing that the fate of any one

social pillar affects all of them, and all must be strong to build the

proper community foundation.

The center integrates Costa Mesa businesses, churches, residents,

social services, youth organizations, schools and city officials with UCI

faculty, staff, students and all the resources the campus offers.

His hope is that the Westside community would grow stronger through

its partnership with the university, and he also believes UCI will grow

and deepen its connection to the mandate of the mission, Gomez said.

“I truly believe we have the opportunity to create a model of

cooperation between the university and the Costa Mesa community,” Gomez

said. “All is in place to accomplish great things.”

* Lolita Harper covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at o7 lolita.harper@latimes.comf7 .