Twenty miles northwest of Monterey on Highway 1 lies Zmudowski State Beach, a 220-acre expanse of dunes, birds, and the confluence of the Pajaro River with the sea. As per a news release about the park published by California State Parks in 2003, this coastal habitat was gifted to the state by a local Watsonville schoolteacher, Mary Zmudowski, who donated 155 acres, including 9,124 feet, or roughly 1.73 miles, of ocean frontage, in 1950 to create the park. Her family's name was memorialized in the park's new designation in 1952 by the state, which otherwise garnered no fanfare for the donation.
A less flashy kind of philanthropy
