For 30 years, the Marine Mammal Care Center helped rescue and rehabilitate marine animals along the coast from Malibu to Seal Beach to give them a new lease on life.
Just three years ago, the MMCC in San Pedro needed its own rehabilitation when it nearly closed its doors due to a funding shortage. But through the philanthropy and volunteerism of numerous people, the nonprofit is now thriving at age 30, according to Amber Becerra, president and CEO of MMCC.
“We are looking toward a future of growth and expansion, so we have a lot to celebrate,” said Becerra on Sept. 18, at an MMCC 30th celebration.
Richard and Melanie Lundquist, renowned philanthropists in the South Bay and beyond, hosted the 30th anniversary celebration at their Palos Verdes Estates residence. The event was a fundraiser for MMCC, but they also had a surprise announcement.
Melanie Lundquist announced she and her husband, founders of El Segundo-based Continental Development Corporation, were pledging $1 million to the MMCC in honor of Becerra and her team for their efforts of revitalizing the organization.
Lundquist said the $1 million will be unrestricted and can be used however Becerra sees fit.
“There aren’t very many people that have the level of commitment, the dedication, that tenacity and that perseverance,” Melanie Lundquist said. “She knew in her heart of hearts, this was not going to fail.”
More than $200,000 was also raised at the event.
The Lundquists have been donors and fundraisers for decades, focusing mainly on education and health care, including Torrance Memorial Medical Center and its $480 million Melanie and Richard Lundquist Tower which opened in 2015.
The Lundquists have supported the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, the largest mammal rehabilitation hospital in the world, for 12 years, said Melanie before the presentation. But it wasn’t until her husband Richard had heard Becerra on an NPR program in 2019 talking about the MMCC’s struggles that they become involved in the San Pedro-based organization.
Melanie Lundquist said before the presentation it was a “tragedy and travesty” that her generation — she’s 73 years old — has not taken care of the planet and have left a “humongous mess” for future generations.
“The health of our oceans and the health of marine life means we have a healthy planet, if we have a healthy planet, we have healthy people,” Melanie Lundquist said. “The ocean’s equal 71% of the surface of the earth of this planet and we are not taking very good care.”
Becerra was a volunteer board member, thinking she was help out with fundraising, when the MMCC, in 2020, began facing dire financial straights and the executive director resigned.
“We were faced with the decision whether we could buy fish for our patients or pay the staff,” Becerra said before the presentation.
The board went into “crisis mode.”
“We had to strip budget down to $1 million a year,” Becerra said.
Becerra stepped in as president and CEO.
“We raised a million dollars of emergency funding, which is what we needed to raise to assure the community, keep our doors open, and then the pandemic hit,” Becerra said.
But Becerra said the center avoided further money woes from the pandemic because they, fortunately, already had the financial machinery in place to keep a positive trajectory.
Financial support from the community, hardworking staff and nearly 170 volunteers have helped them with the challenges.
“A good portion of what we do is just provided by the good hearts of our volunteers that are working completely free,” Becerra said.
Becerra said Melanie Lundquist helped connect MMCC to the Center for Nonprofit Management, a well as donating her personal time, advice and council.
“They just don’t throw money at organizations, they actually invest in organizations beyond their financial capacity,” Becerra said of the Lundquists. “They invest time and resources, energy and advice, which is so critical.”
The MMCC is the only safe haven for marine animals in Los Angeles County, according to its website.
After the 1987 closure of Marineland of the Pacific, which had its own Marine Mammal Care Center, the purchaser of the property and the Los Angeles Unified School District collaborated to build a new Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro’s Angeles Gate Park, across from Fort MacArthur, according to the MMCC website.
Managed then by the Foundation for Marine Animal Husbandry, a Florida non-profit, the MMCC opened officially in October 1992, according to the website.
Over the decades, thousands of animals have received medical care as well as food and shelter.
The MBCC also participates in various research projects conducted by other universities and entities, Becerra said.
The discovery of barrels of DDT off the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the possibility that the dangerous synthetic insecticide developed in the 1940s and banned in 1972 for its detrimental impacts on humans and wildlife was legally dumped directly into the ocean has raised concern by environments.
Becerra said the MMCC takes tissue samples of animals that come into their care whether they are dead or alive. The samples are then sent to research institutions for analysis.
“Without our organization taking these animals in and performing the necropsy or performing tissue samples, we wouldn’t have any data,” Becerra said.
Becerra said MMCC is a “required link between the ocean and the research that’s being done.”
For more information, visit marinemammalcare.org.
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