![2013_03_21-ontario_wheelhouse[1]](https://www.pitzer.edu/communications/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2014/05/2013_03_21-ontario_wheelhouse1.jpg)
Claremont, Calif. (March 21, 2013) – Pitzer College’s Ontario Wheelhouse project has been awarded a $2,500 gift by the Southern California Permanente Medical Group in celebration of National Doctors Day. The gift will be awarded on March 28 at the Kaiser Permanente Ontario Medical Center. The Wheelhouse is a part of the Pitzer in Ontario program.
The Ontario Wheelhouse (OWH) is open three days a week and promotes bicycling within the City of Ontario and its neighboring communities. The Wheelhouse offers an educational, safe and substance-free workspace for cyclists to service bikes.
“We are proud of the program’s community-building and empowerment aspects,” said Pitzer in Ontario Urban Fellow Max Estela ’12. “The program has helped more than 200 people in the surrounding areas and is still growing.”
The program was founded in 2010 by Pitzer students Max Kaplan ’13, Sylvie Froncek ’11 and Nicole Scheunemann ’10, with support from Director of Pitzer in Ontario and Assistant Professor of Environmental Analysis Susan Phillips and Lloyd G. Bumstead of Bumstead’s Bicycles. The initial funding for the program came from Pitzer College’s Ecology Center, Green Bike Program and Community Engagement Center. The OWH began as a way to counter the Inland Empire’s car culture by encouraging people to use bikes and by facilitating bike maintenance in the Ontario area.
“We are excited to work with our community partners and with local bike advocacy groups to help change the status of bicycling in the Inland Empire,” said Phillips. “This financial support helps our efforts in promoting a more sustainable, healthy and community-oriented Ontario.”
Instead of purchasing small, individual gifts for physicians to celebrate National Doctors Day, Kaiser Permanente donated money to Wheelhouse as a way to promote healthy habits in the Ontario area.
Southern California Permanente Medical Group (SCPMG) is a for-profit organization of doctors who serve the 3.3 million members of Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California region health care network. The Southern California Kaiser Permanente regional organization is made up of a not-for-profit company that administers the company’s health plan, a group of about a dozen community hospitals, and the for-profit SCPMG. Its Southern California service territory encompasses metropolitan Los Angeles, San Diego County, the Inland Empire, Orange County and western Ventura County.
