Exceeding its fund-raising goal, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s 20th Annual Mission Creek Gala brought in $445,000 for museum education programs.
The May 18 event, called Walk Our Wild Side Soirée, took inspiration from the museum’s natural setting along Mission Creek. Some 220 guests dined in one of three renovated exhibit halls, Mammal and Bird Habitat halls, and Santa Barbara Gallery.
Uniquely designed tableaux were themed: the Fossil Society, Cosmos Society, Biblioteca Society, and Vertebratas Society. Guests enjoyed an outdoor cocktail reception in the museum backyard featuring:
A fossil station with Jonathan Hoffman, Dibblee Collection manager of earth science, and youth volunteer Ryder Welch; a bat station with Krista Fahy, curator of vertebrate zoology; a preview of the summer exhibit Butterflies Alive! in the new Sprague Butterfly Pavilion; and interactions (from a safe distance) with a live mountain lion from Zoo to You.
Attendees also heard from youth representatives from the museum’s teen program Quasars to Sea Stars (Bianca Campagnari, Diego Perez); Nature Adventures camps and classes (Hanna, Naomi, and Ava John), and nature ambassador Lena Fackler.
The gala committee, chaired by Stacey Byers, included Bobbie Kinnear, Amy Carpenter, Carolyn Chandler, Ginny Bliss, Elisabeth Fowler, Heather Hambleton, Emily Jones, Kali Kopley, Pam Valeski, Pippa Hames-Knowlton.
Also, Sheri Eckmann, Susan Parker, Venesa Faciane, Jenna Savage Davis, Meridith Moore and Caroline Grange.
The committee worked with planner Gillian Valentine Events and Hogue & Co.
The Mission Creek Gala sustains the museum’s outstanding education program that touches the lives of 20,0000 schoolchildren each year through school tours, classes, storytelling, camps, the Nature Collections Lending Library, and outreach at the Museum and Sea Center.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History was founded in 1916 by ornithologist William Leon Dawson as the Museum of Comparative Oology. Soon after, the Board of Directors expanded the museum to include other aspects of natural history,
In 1923, the museum opened at its current campus along Mission Creek. Today, with more than 3.5 million specimens in its collections, the museum has become one of the Central Coast’s most significant cultural and scientific institutions.
In celebration of its 100th anniversary in 2016, the Museum embarked upon a $20 million Centennial Campaign to raise funds to support improving the visitor experience on every level. The revitalized spaces were unveiled in 2018.
— Briana Sapp Tivey for Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History & Sea Center.