CINPF Spotlight
Welcome to CIPF Spotlight, a dedicated space for the stories of the partners, volunteers, and donors whose tireless commitment sustains the Channel Islands National Park.
Explore the diverse community voices that bring our mission to life and discover the shared passion for protecting this extraordinary coastal treasure.
Jennifer Bain
A Big Question with a Host of Answers
A message from Board Director and Author, Ken McAlpine
Why are the five islands of Channel Islands National Park important to you? It’s a big question with a host of answers, but we will keep it simple.
Wild places matter, and if we don’t support them, one day what they offer may be irreparably altered. Or lost.
Channel Islands National Park Foundation (CINPF) is the philanthropic arm of Channel Islands National Park. We raise money for the Park. So a very special wild place will stay special. And everyone from all walks of life can enjoy the magic.
The five islands that comprise the Park – Santa Barbara, Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel – have been called the Galapagos of North America, but frankly, that’s selling them short. So close (the nearest islands are a 60-minute boat ride from Ventura and Oxnard), and yet worlds away, the islands offer visitors the chance to experience a place wholly unique and life-changing.
Lee Rentz
Yes, their wildness is lovely. A wondrous world where housecat-size foxes scamper through fields of Seuss-like flowers, and miniature oaks turn gold in the last gloaming light, and grasses flow up to empty summits as if hurrying to catch the view, and everywhere you breathe the sea.
A place where birds wheel and shriek, and waves thump against empty shores, and, well, those are pretty much the only sounds.
Ian Shive
But the islands are about more than soothing views and sounds. They offer the rarest of chances. The chance to go slow. The chance to step away from a world of noise and breakneck speed. The chance to feel nothing but the racing of your heart and the lightness of joy in your soul. Or a special hand in yours. Moments to be treasured forever.
And forever, it’s not really a very long time.
Because our time here – to experience good, to do good – is fleeting.
So thank you for helping us do good.
So that you have a special place to go, and when you can’t go, your children can,
and their children too.
Gary Kavanaugh/GettyImages
Have a story or an image of the islands to share? Reach out—we’d love to hear from you!
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