Home - Pando Populus

We’re Pando.

We’re accomplishing the impossible through real-life projects with young people.

We’re building a brighter and better future for the 10 million people who call LA home.

Now, people in other cities have asked for our help.

Our Pando Days program has delivered real results in its birthplace, Los Angeles County.

Pando Days is the higher-education program that organizes and supports practical projects. We address the goals prioritized by Los Angeles County and municipal leaders, so our projects are powered by the very real needs of the local communities where our participants live.

Civic engagement is at the heart of everything we do. Our programs focus on young people in higher ed, K-12, outside of schools, and across faith communities.

And they’re run by passionate people who care.

Our secret sauce.
The most powerful force that we unleash is the imagination and determination of young people. We know how to motivate and organize them with our proven model and methodology.

Our focus is their futures.
We remind them that it’s their job to create their futures. We give them the inspiration and resources to make courageous things happen. People, knowledge, funding, and skills are all part of the Pando Days toolkit.

Challenge-based education matters.
Our guide in our Southern California work is the sustainability plan adopted by LA County leaders, so the challenges address by Pando projects align with the highest strategic priorities of the region: jobs, resilience, shelter, water, climate, transportation, food, trash, biodiversity, and justice.

Our most important thing is connections.

We’re connecting more than 25 colleges and universities across Los Angeles to each other and to the heart of education: saving the world by improving communities. We’re also connecting businesses, utilities, public agencies, governments, civic organizations, K-12 education districts, and just about anyone who cares about their community.

And we’re doing it in ways that make people wonder why they were all never connected before.

Expanding Pando.

Now we want to help recreate the success of Pando Days in new cities to address their local issues. We’re out to multiply our success in new places and in better ways — quickly.

Pando.

We’re a non-profit education organization focused on the civic engagement of young people that cultivates projects that address the goals of LA County’s Sustainability Plan. We’ve been asked to help bring our success to more communities across America.

Our funny name.

We’re named after the one-tree aspen forest in south-central Utah, the largest organism on Earth – Pando. Made up of over 47,000 trunks and millions of leaves, all connected through one root system.

It’s a particularly good metaphor for our interconnected lives, challenges, and solutions — and a particularly good name for this organization that’s passionately committed to connecting everyone.

Pando Days 2024-’25: project applications now being accepted for the spring

Learn more

Our growing successes

Pando Days

Series

Our flagship program in higher education unites instructors across the County to tackle the toughest of our sustainability issues.

Magenta House

Series

Our youth program empowers kids to create the water- and power-conscious future we all need and desire.

Camp Pando

Camp Pando is for young people reentering from juvenile detention, foster care, and dropping out of school and focuses them on creative projects that help meet Southland challenges.