With support from the California Arts Council, Costanoan Indian Research Inc. or CIR will partner with Native artists Kanyon Sayers-Roods and Bernadette Smith to implement the Acorn Project. An intertribal collaboration, the Acorn Project is a sharing of both Ohlone and Pomo acorn traditions through the cultural arts with young people (ages 16-25) from Point Arena and Indian Canyon. CAC funds will be largely used to cover artist fees and transportation costs.
CIR’s goals and objectives are to: create local, national, and international educational programs designed to improve and enhance the cultural image of California Natives through greater public exposure of tribal history; establish greater influence over public policies and programs that affect Indigenous peoples and the environment; identify and implement projects that improve the cohesiveness and self-sufficiency of the Mutsun/Costanoan Ohlone people; provide land for Indigenous peoples to carry out their tribal ceremonies and share their traditional way of living in harmony with the environment, and provide support to California Indigenous peoples who are fighting for land rights.
CIR does this by providing land to Natives in need of land for ceremony, presenting annual storytelling gatherings, holding sweats and other ceremonies, publishing books, hosting seed collections, offering two spirit retreats, and more.

