The Sara Nelson Fund

has been established to support Santa Monica Mountains Fund (SAMO Fund), founded in 1988 and the official partner of the National Park Service for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area — the largest and most diverse urban park in the United States. Encompassing over 500 miles of trail systems and nearly 160,000 acres of open space, it extends from the western end of the Santa Monica Mountains in Ventura County, along the entire Malibu coast, and stretches through the hills surrounding the Palisades, Brentwood, Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Bowl.

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was the brainchild and lifelong passion of Sara’s mother, committed environmental activist Susan Nelson, who started the “Friends of the Santa Monica Mountains, Parks and Seashore” group in 1964 in response to proposed large-scale development planned in the Malibu hills. Over the next decade she joined forces with two other local activists, Margo Feuer and Jill Swift, and together the three fought tirelessly against developers and political opposition to put forward Congressional legislation to establish the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 1978, followed by the creation of Santa Monica Mountains Fund ten years later to make sure these beautiful wildlands are maintained, preserved and protected for future generations.

Anyone who has spent a day at the beach in Malibu, hiked in Runyon Canyon or the Westridge Trailhead, or gone horseback riding in Will Rogers State Park has been the beneficiary of all the hard work and dedication of Susan and her fellow “Mothers of the Mountains.” They are directly responsible for creating and sustaining this vast, unique natural habitat that’s a key part of what makes Southern California the envy of the world, attracting nearly one million visitors a year.

However, the challenges facing the Santa Monica Mountains continue, resulting from the new normal of nearly year-round wildfire seasons, habitat loss and shrinking federal budgets. It makes SAMO Fund’s perpetuation of what Nelson and her fellow “Mothers” created even more critical, and why Susan’s daughter, Sara, who carried on her mother’s commitment by supporting and chairing the board of SAMO Fund for many years, has endowed this Fund.

Supporting the Sara Nelson Fund will not only honor Susan Nelson’s legacy, but will directly provide the steady, ongoing flow of unrestricted resources necessary to ensure SAMO Fund’s programs and its continuing of support of the SMMNRA.