Rancho Los Alamitos -The Community Campaign

The Community Campaign to Support Rancho Los Alamitos

CAMPAIGN GOALS

Raise $1 million in large and small gifts through broad community support to finish the fundraising campaign for Rancho Los Alamitos.
Receive 500 gifts of $100 or more.
Attract 500 new members.
Build the Endowment through the Legacy Fund.

All donors of $100 or more to the Community Campaign will be recognized at the Opening of the restored Barns Area and new Education Center in November 2011.

Please scroll down for more information.

The First Step

Restoring the Historic Barns Area

Rancho Los Alamitos is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has a reputation for superb historic preservation, creative programming, and award-winning educational products and publications.

The Barns Area Restoration and Education Center Project re-establishes the historic character of the barnyard by bringing back the functional layout of the buildings and style of the early working ranch, including its plants, vines and tress. Four early 20th century barns have been relocated and restored. The expansion of the Horse Barn will culminate in the new Education Center, a remarkable public use and educational environment which calls on the voices of Rancho Los Alamitos over time to reveal the layers of the landscape, native people and newcomers. The Project ushers in new opportunity and purpose as we continue to explore the site's cultural ecology in the broader context of the region and state. Rancho Los Alamitos has always been a place of new beginnings, ever changing, always the same.

The Final Step

Creating a New Education Center

The new Education Center is at the heart of the future for Rancho Los Alamitos. Its public spaces and media tools will provide the ability to explore the more than 1,500 year story of the ranch through the voices and images of the people and the evolving landscape. Life at Povuu'nga and the ranch will be portrayed in the new Education Center as sometimes prescient and at other times a reaction to the larger regional, national and worldwide story.

The spaces of the new Education Center will feature:

An orientation Graphic that explains the opportunities for the visitor to experience.
The Video Theater which provides the regional context for the site.
The Exhibit Room that features the stories of the people who have lived on the land over time.
The Rancho Room and its dramatic floor and wall murals which explore issues of climate and the vital role of water as plants from around the world have re-shaped the landscape

Rancho Los Alamitos emanates from the ancient gathering place of the native Tongva people. It continues to resonate today as a place full of life as new cultures layered upon ancient and enduring roots tell the complex story of Southern California. Rancho Los Alamitos speaks to many cultures and also to endurance, resilience, and the relationship between people and place, culture and environment, over time.

The restoration of the Barns Area, but more importantly the construction of the Education Center, will give the site new tools and spaces to explore the full story of the place called Povuu'nga by its earliest and ongoing Native American Community and which is also known today as Rancho Los Alamitos.