Why Charmayne Mills-Ealy Joined the PCC Foundation

For Charmayne Mills-Ealy, joining the PCC Foundation continues a decades-long tradition of support for education and community. 

“I come from a family of givers,” she says. 

Her mother worked as an English school teacher, and her father, a mechanic, served in the Air Force. 

Additionally, Charmayne and her husband Raymond are members of the Pasadena Community Foundation’s Legacy Society, where they established the Raymond Ealy & Charmayne Mills-Ealy Endowment for the Homeless in 2018, which helps provide services to people experiencing homelessness and works to explore systemic solutions to the issue of homelessness in Pasadena.

She smiles when talking about her family. “We’ve always been community service oriented.”

Charmayne is the former Assistant United States Trustee for the Central District of California, Los Angeles, from 1984-2014.

“When I first started, I was a presidential management intern under President Jimmy Carter, if you can believe it.”

Today, she is the Director of Operations for STEAM:CODERS, a nonprofit she co-founded with her husband that aims to inspire underrepresented and underserved students through Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) programs. 

“Our mission is to make sure we instill logic, problem-solving, and critical thinking for these students in preparation for academic and career opportunities,” she says. 

Charmayne is a graduate of UCLA and has a master’s degree in Public Administration from USC. She presently sits on the Pasadena Delta Foundation Board and serves as a Friend of the Pasadena Altadena Community Endowment Fund. She also serves on the Pasadena Child Health Foundation Board of Directors, which is where she got to know Gloria Pitzer, President of the PCC Foundation. 

“It was Gloria who introduced me to the PCC Foundation,” Charmayne explains. “She and I were on the board of the Pasadena Child Health Foundation for almost six years. We worked together, got to know each other pretty well, and then she asked me if I would be interested in coming on board the PCC Foundation.” 

Charmayne gives a small laugh. “I said, of course I would be.”

It was the mid 90s when Charmayne and her family first moved to the Pasadena area. She didn’t know much about the local institutions at the time, but her son, Aaron, would grow up attending Pasadena schools and getting involved in the community. In 2015, Aaron enrolled at PCC before transferring to LaSalle University in 2017.

This is when Charmayne began to notice the College.

“He was in PCC’s Career & Technical Education program,” she says. “Specifically, he was a communications arts major doing TV and radio audio production.”

When Charmayne speaks of her son’s experience at PCC, she beams. “He loved his time there,” she says. “He was able to work at Lancer Radio and was also able to do an internship with KPCC, which was so exciting for him. I mean, if you were to ask him what he enjoyed most about being a student at PCC, he would tell you it was his involvement with the radio station and KPCC. He just loved it.”

Throughout her involvement with STEAM:CODERS, Charmayne became more familiar with PCC. 

“STEAM:CODERS would hold classes at the College,” she explains. “We’d bring middle school and high school students on campus, help them attend classes in the labs so they could get a feel for what a STEAM college experience is like.”

In partnership with the Pathways program, STEAM:CODERS has hired many PCC graduates as instructors, as site coordinators, and as staff over the years, allowing the organization to get better acquainted with the College and its benefit to the greater San Gabriel Valley.

So when Gloria asked Charmayne if she would be interested in joining the Foundation board in 2019, it was a no-brainer. 

“Of course, of course, of course,” she says emphatically. “I’d grown quite familiar with PCC and its Foundation over the years, and I’ve also known people on the board. The Galloways, for instance. It’s always been something people spoke highly of. And so going in, I knew I was already proud to be a part of it.”

It was the Foundation’s focus on Career & Technical Education, however, that really drew Charmayne’s interest. 

“I remember having a conversation with Gloria and Bobbi when I first joined, and we talked about how the Foundation could get more involved with CTE,” she says. “I told them my son was in CTE, and that I could definitely see where there’s a need for scholarships and internships, along with a need to spotlight the success of those students.”

“Which is pretty much what we’re working on now,” she adds. 

For instance, with PCC’s nursing students, the Foundation is tracking where graduates go upon completion of the program. Additionally, it is working with local clinics to provide jobs and/or internships for them. 

“Having local businesses provide these opportunities for our PCC students is great for workforce development in the community,” Charmayne says. 

Given her interests and expertise, along with her own career in STEAM education, Charmayne was asked to co-chair the Foundation’s Advancing Science campaign in 2020. 

With a $4 million goal, the Advancing Science campaign will raise funds to accompany the replacement Sarafian Building on PCC’s campus, which was deemed seismically unsafe in 2012. The building—currently undergoing reconstruction and refinishing—will house the College’s Health Sciences and Natural Sciences divisions beginning Fall 2023.

Chaired by Foundation board member Rob Floe and co-chaired by Charmayne, the campaign will work to support the new facility’s fixtures and furniture, along with equipment, programming and scholarships for the Health & Natural Sciences divisions. 

“I had been active on the Foundation’s scholarship and communications committees,” Charmayne says, “and when we got to talking about this new opportunity with the Sarafian Building, I thought, Oh, this is good. I know people—several doctors around town—who often talk about the need for more nurses. So I remember thinking this campaign was a wonderful venture for the Foundation.”

A dedicated team player, and always unassuming, Charmayne was initially surprised when she was asked to co-chair the campaign. 

“Though maybe I shouldn’t have been,” she says. “I could see where I could get more people interested in supporting PCC’s science programs. Because we’re trying to help these kids get local jobs, and because PCC has a great reputation with respect to its science programs—things like nursing, cosmology, and dentistry—I knew it would be a wonderful way to fundraise and raise awareness for these programs and for these students.”

It’s especially important, Charmayne says, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve seen how necessary it is to support science education these past couple years; we’ve seen how important it is to have quality healthcare,” she says. “COVID exposed so much. We were able to get a good look at the gap of advantages between those who, say, have computers and internet access and those who don’t.”

“It definitely showed the disparities within our community,” she adds. 

Among the many hats she wears—whether its Director of Operations, board member, philanthropist, mom, or campaign co-chair—Charmayne continues to put education and her community first. She is proud of the PCC Foundation and all the work it does to support student success, and she is thrilled to be serving on the Advancing Science campaign. 

“Students being introduced to science and working in that field is so important right now—perhaps more important than ever—and having the right equipment and programs is necessary for a quality education. I’m here to help in any way I can.”