We were lucky to catch up with Jonathan Guy recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jonathan , appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I knew I wanted to pursue this path when I returned to the US from China. It completely changed my perspective and I knew that it would for students as well.
Jonathan , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Jonathan Guy and I’m the founder of the Pacific Bridge Club (PBC). I’m a teacher in Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) and I’m going on my 10th year teaching inner city youth in social science. After living in China for 3 years, I returned to the United States to finish my certification of teaching secondary education and that’s when I began teaching in Oakland Unified School District. Traveling the world and teaching in East Oakland youth showed me how there’s such a huge demand from young people to see the world and experience it so I created PBC. PBC provides youth with international and domestic travel opportunities and after school accredited pathways in volunteerism, career building, and world cultures. When PBC travels, one of the things that separates us is how we focus on volunteering. We serves endangered and mistreated communities such as wildlife, people, and environments upon returning our students go throughout classrooms sharing their experiences so that more youth will inspire to see the world.
Products and Services
PBC is now open to providing this service of after-school accredited pathway classes, our international network, and international and domestic travel to other school communities in the Bay Area. In addition, students participate in our signature international teleconference in which students host an array of NGOs in which we’ve collaborated with. In terms of products, PBC provides our attire and eventually our coloring book/cartoon for kids all over.
Problems We Solve
When PBC goes to marginalized schools, we do the following with their communities:
PBC’ s taken over 220 students on journeys since 2018.
❏ 100% graduation rate
❏ 100% of students in PBC maintain at least a 2.5 g.p.a
❏ 100% of students raised their total and core g.p.a since
being in PBC.
❏ 100% of students attendance improved from the time
they committed to PBC.
❏ 100% of students believe being in PBC inspired them to
take their classes more seriously as well as study more
frequently.
❏ 100% of students believed that being in PBC changed
their outlook on life and improved their world
perspective.
❏ 100% of our students go to college after they graduate high school
These are problems we solve especially since underfunded schools struggle with truancy, testing, and providing students with active learning experiences like ours.
Most Proud Of
I’m most proud of providing this program and changing perspectives to over 220 students whom we have traveled with so far, especially when you know their situations in life.
Main Things We Want Them to Know
We want them to know that we’ve created a program for high school youth to travel the world, earn credits, volunteer, and change the world. We want them to know that we can bring this program to their school community if they contact us and choose to invest into the active learning of their youth. We want them to know that we can improve on the culture and landscape of their school and their community.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
PBC’s mission is to use community building, international travel and our accredited pathways in volunteerism, career building, and world cultures as tools to building and improving the lives of Oakland teens so they’re more able to thrive. We want our youth to develop an international sense of how our world works so they can return with new perspectives and experiences to share with our community. “I want to help our youth transition from teens to adults by developing their outlook on life through amazing life changing experiences and fun action pact adventures both domestically and abroad.” — Jonathan Guy
How did you build your audience on social media?
With us we opened up the major social media platforms and made the youth we’re helping the centerpiece of our content. We also promoted this both international and domestic with the community we represent and the communities we volunteer with abroad. The biggest thing we see so far is just staying consistent and creating fun posts for people to see what we’re all about.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pacificbridgeclub.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pacificbridgeclub/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pacificbridgeclub.pbc/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbc-pacific-bridge-club-561725242/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/bridge_pacific?lang=en
- Youtube: https://www.facebook.com/pacificbridgeclub.pbc/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@pacificbridgeclub PBC’s Tik Tok