Sorry, Online Registration is Closed
EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO SUPPORT AND PARTICIPATE!
"Protect Puvungna and all sacred lands! Take action!"
- Rebecca Robles, Friends of Puvungna
Upload your times & photos Mar. 20 - Mar. 28
BENEFICIARIES
5K RUN/WALK
Funds raised will go to Protect Puvungna + California Cultural Resource Preservation Alliance (CCRPA)
Our Mission is to protect and preserve cultural resources such as sacred sites, archaeological sites, historic sites, traditional resource gathering areas, cultural landscapes, burial sites, and American Indian traditional places in southern California with a focus on Orange and Los Angeles counties.
10K RUN/WALK
Funds raised will go to Rising Hearts
Rising Hearts is an Indigenous led grassroots organization committed to the heart work in elevating Indigenous voices, promoting and supporting intersectional collaborative efforts across all movements with the goals of racial, social, climate, and economic justice. Our primary focuses are to inform, elevate, mobilize, and organize through strategic and targeted advocacy, establishing collaborative partnerships to help create a better and safer future and environment for all of our relatives who inhabit this planet, past, present and future.
Funds from this virtual run will help support the Running on Native Lands Initiative, Indigenous Wellness through Movement Series, Advocacy and community organizing efforts for 2021, delivering masks and supplies to relatives and communities in need until everyone is safe and no longer in a pandemic, Running with Purpose community club team and planning for collaborative events in May 2021 for National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and relatives. 
HALF MARATHON
Funds raised will go to NDN Collective Land Back Campaign:
LANDBACK is a movement that has existed for generations with a long legacy of organizing and sacrifice to get Indigenous Lands back into Indigenous hands. Currently, there are LANDBACK battles being fought all across Turtle Island, to the North and the South. As NDN Collective, we are stepping into this legacy with the launch of the LANDBACK Campaign as a mechanism to connect, coordinate, resource and amplify this movement and the communities that are fighting for LANDBACK.
Visit Landback.org to join the movement – Land Back – building a movement for collective liberation.
EDUCATIONAL INFORMATION
Read the Latest Article About the Court Case About Puvungna in June 2021
Purpose: To build solidarity and awareness on protecting Puvungna and all sacred sites.
Process: There will be a 1 week of a virtual prayer run from Saturday March 20th to Sunday March 28th. A weekly virtual zoom conversation on updates about Puvungna on Sundays with Rebecca, leading up to the virtual prayer run. Including registration donation for fundraising efforts - toward the lawsuit and future organizing.
Rising Hearts is helping to organize this virtual run for Friends of Puvungna, to host this prayer run and put out a call to action to raise awareness of the desecration and destruction of this sacred site known as “Puvungna” or “the gathering place”, located at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). The 5k portion of funds raised (and with sticker purchases) will go towards the lawsuit, organizing efforts, and education to continue the protection of Puvungna.
STATUS OF PUVUNGNA: CCRPA and the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians Acjachemen Nation - Baladres Band filed a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuit against CSULB for not consulting with affiliated Tribes. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the case has been stalled, but will be heard on June 17th 2021.
PUVUNGNA:
Puvungna is a sacred site to the Acjachemen and Tongva people which was once a 500 acre site, spread across the CSULB Campus and beyond. This sacred site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Native American Heritage Commission’s Sacred Lands File, and is an active ceremonial site. Puvungna is the place of creation or emergence. It is where we were once spiritual beings who then became physical beings. Wiyot, who was the first deity to come to us at Puvungna, and then left. Chingichnish came next, he was the law giver and god who taught us what we needed to know in order to live on earth as human beings. Puvungna is also known as “the gathering place” where different tribes come together in ceremony and trade. In 1992, the university attempted to develop a strip mall. Tribal people came together in protest which led to the ACLU and the Native American Heritage Commission filing a lawsuit against the university. The university paid over 2.3 million dollars in legal fees, but in 1995 abandoned all plans for development and pledged to preserve Puvungna as open space. This site remained an undeveloped grassy ceremonial area with a few trees. In September 2019, the university began building the Parkside North Dormitory and dumped soils and debris onto Puvungna from the construction site. We are working to preserve the sacred site of Puvungna, have the soils and debris removed, and continue the preservation of this sacred site indefinitely. In keeping with Governor Gavin Newsom’s apology to California Native Peoples for the historic mistreatment and genocide, it is crucial that Puvungna remains protected as a ceremonial sacred site. Puvungna is like Bethlehem or Mecca. It is a holy place and deserves reverence.
To learn more, please visit: www.CCRPA.com and read about the latest update to this lawsuit here.
Implementing land acknowledgements at your race / events:
1. Give a land acknowledgement at your race or event. Acknowledge the stolen lands you are on, that you are organizing on - the very lands that many Indigenous communities were forcibly removed from or are still the first and original caretakers of the lands.
A land acknowledgement is a formal recognition, a sign of respect for the First Peoples of the land and their connection to it and protection of the lands. Through this first step - you will be able to show respect and you will have a different, and hopefully, deeper connection and appreciation of the lands. In this first step, Rising Hearts is here to help support you in your outreach to Tribes, Indigenous communities or Native organizations that can help give a land acknowledgement. If someone from the local communities can’t, then find an Indigenous person in the surrounding areas to give the land acknowledgement. If any of these options can’t work - you will ask those voices or communities if they would like to provide a written land acknowledgement that your organizing entity can read before the races/events begin. If there are Indigenous participants in your event that are attending - we can reach out to them to see if they are okay with reading / giving the land acknowledgement before the last option. Lastly, if that can’t happen, your organizing entity will draft a written land acknowledgement and Rising Hearts will help review to ensure it is accurate and reflective of the communities, their culture, history, and presence on the lands.
RESOURCES TO USE TO FIND THE INDIGENOUS LANDS YOU ARE ON:
A. Download the NativeLand App - this is a great resource. NOTE: the app is not always accurate.
B. Visit https://native-land.ca/. NOTE: that this map does not represent or intend to represent official or legal boundaries of any Indigenous nations. To learn about definitive boundaries, contact the nations in question. but also know that all lands you are on - are stolen native lands.
C. Text your zip code to 907-312-5085 and the bot will respond the Indigenous Peoples/Tribes that are directly connected to those lands. NOTE: that this may not always be accurate.
D. Use google: For example, “Indigenous Tribes of the Great Plains… or Indigenous/Native Tribes and peoples of Los Angeles”
E. Visit cultural centers (when it’s more safe and not during a pandemic) in the towns you visit - learn from Indigenous voices in your self-informed education of understanding the lands you are on and who have been protecting them since pre-contact.
F. Don’t be performative with your posts - a land acknowledgement is not a "check in the box.”
NOTE: All technological systems created to help identify the Indigenous lands, peoples, their place names and Tribes you are on - are a work in progress and not always accurate.
For more resources on land acknowledgment please visit meztli projects - they have created a land acknowledgements document - the why, when, where, and intentions of giving a land acknowledgement:
www.bit.ly/NtvLand or email: [email protected]
GOING THE EXTRA MILE:
It doesn’t end with just a land acknowledgement at the race. It goes further.
Please download our Running on Native Lands toolkit here and visit www.risinghearts.org/nativelands to learn more and contact us at [email protected] with “Running on Native Lands Initiative” in the subject, should you want to collaborate.
Examples for Individuals wanting to give a land acknowledgment on their social media platforms with their photos:
"Occupied Tongva Lands / Los Angeles, CA"
"Támal Pájis / Coast Miwok - Mount Tamalpais / Ohlone Lands / San Francisco, CA / Marin, CA"
"Diné, Goshute, Southern Paiute, Eastern Shoshone, Ute lands - Bears Ears to Salt Lake City, UT"
We hope you team up with us! And to learn more about Rising Hearts – visit www.risinghearts.org
FOLLOW US
Instagram
@rising_hearts
@protectpuvungna
@renew_earth_running
TRACKING YOUR DISTANCE
4 laps on a track = 1 Mile
12.5 laps on a track = 5K
25 laps on a track = 10K
Treadmill
MapMyRun.com
Find a Certified USATF Course
Some run/walk events display course maps at elitefeats.com
Many parks have measured 'fitness' trails open to the public
Download free app Strava & hit 'Record'
QUESTIONS
Email [email protected]
VIRTUAL HOW TO
1. Run/walk whenever & wherever you'd like!
2. Starting on the event date go to elitefeats.com/Results - search 'Run For Puvungna'
3. Search for your name - click Update.
4. Enter your time.
5. OPTIONAL upload up to 5 photos!
#efVirtual
WHEN TO POST
EARLY REGISTRANTS (before start day) can start posting times ON start day!
LATE REGISTRANTS (after start day) allow up to 24 hours to post times.
BIB MAILING begins Monday prior to start day. If you register after this, please allow 3-5 business days to receive.
You don't need the bib to participate, it's a keepsake!
ROSTER COUNT FOR TEAM CHALLENGE
