We hope you all enjoyed our April Fool's Day prank in last month's newsletter - sorry if we had you worried there for a minute!
It's spring and the lilies of Olompali are in bloom!
Filmmakers Update
Please join us for Olompali Heritage Day on May 18!! If you live in the Bay Area, we hope to see you at the 29th annual Olompali State Historic Park Heritage Day on Sunday, May 18, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., hosted by the Olompali People and California State Parks.
The schedule of events will include:
Our new trailer We will be presenting a new theater-style trailer for "Olompali: A California Story" in the Visitor's Center at around 2:00 p.m. We also hope to screen a few short excerpts from the film to give everyone a look at our work in progress.
New photo exhibit Noelle Olompali will be doing a presentation of vintage photos - see below for more info.
Honoring the historic adobe As part of California State Parks' 150th anniversary celebrations, this year's Heritage Day will include a very special ceremony - the unveiling of a plaque commemorating Camilo Ynitia's adobe as a California Historic Landmark. A number of descendants/representatives from each of Olompali's historic eras have been invited take part in the ceremony, which is slated to take place at 1:00 p.m. We're very much hoping that some special guests will attend! ;-)
Other Heritage Day activitiesinclude tours of the remains of the Burdell Mansion and historic adobe, guided nature walks, and interactive family activities.
More info Admission to the park is free, and parking is $8. Bring a picnic lunch, or tacos, burritos and other tasty Mexican food will be available for purchase. And as always, there will be free vanilla ice cream courtesy of Clover Stornetta Farms! The event ends at 4 p.m. and the park closes at 5 p.m. so please don't come too late.
Bakery platform photo exhibit As a new addition to Heritage Day, Noelle Olompali Barton will be presenting a display of vintage photos depicting the construction in 1968 of the concrete bakery platform, one of the few remaining artifacts of the Chosen Family commune's time at Olompali which can still be found at the park.
The octagonal concrete slab was engineered and constructed to support a commercial bakery oven that the commune members used to bake hundreds of loaves of wheat bread during the summer of 1968.
Most of the bread was taken to San Francisco to be distributed by local underground activist group The Diggers as part of their Free Food program, which benefitted many of the thousands of people who flocked to the City after hearing about the "Summer of Love."
You can learn more about the Diggers and the Free Bakeries here: http://www.diggers.org/diggers/digbread.html
Olompali Person of the Month
This month we'd like to recognize Diane Einstein, the Chairperson of The Olompali People (aka TOP), a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Olompali's rich history and supporting the park's visitor services. Diane is a one-woman powerhouse whose efforts on behalf of TOP have made a huge difference in the park's past, present, and future.
The Olompali People supports Olompali State Historic Park through fundraising, volunteer work, and advocacy. They were the driving force in opening the park to the public in 1990, and have worked hand-in-hand with California State Parks ever since.
Donations to The Olompali People are welcome and can be made through their website at www.Olompali.org. We send our thanks and respect to Diane for all of her efforts in support of Olompali over the years!
