In a continued effort to improve its museum collection, the Hermosa Beach Historical Society this Saturday will host a fund-raiser to subsidize a new expansion that will highlight the city’s unique surfing history.

The organization hopes to eventually generate $30,000 through a series of fund-raisers that will pay for renovations to the 2,145-square-foot space at the Hermosa Beach Community Center.

The city donated the new space to the Historical Society which will now house new surfing memorabilia, along with a county lifeguard tower the group recently acquired from the city’s beach through the decommission process.

The society will eventually add other exhibits signifying the city’s role in history of jazz, volleyball, skateboarding and the 1970s local punk rock scene in Hermosa Beach.

“This is a huge step for the society to take as they are committed to making the museum something very special for the community,” said Parks and Recreation Commissioner Howard Fishman, who has been involved in the society’s museum expansion. “The city was very gracious to provide them this additional space.”

The event will take place at the Hermosa Playhouse where the public is invited to take part in a raffle and an auction while enjoying appetizers, a hula dancing performance, the music of the surf band The Detonators and footage from old surf movies. Tickets to the event are $15 and cocktails are $3.

Abel Ybarra, organizer of the Aloha Days Surfing Festival, is handling the fund-raising efforts as the group’s publicity chairman while the society’s vice president, Rick Koenig, the owner of a construction firm, will oversee the building process.

“We have already started work on half of the space with a volunteer cleanup about two weeks ago,” said Koenig. “We are going to build a boardwalk inside and create interactive displays. We want to create a formal and proper museum in Hermosa Beach as a way to display the small-town spirit that once defined our country.”

Founded about 16 years ago, the Historical Society first housed its museum in the Hermosa Beach Community Center in 1992. The new expansion will integrate an area the city once used as a storage room and formerly known as the wood shop room from the Pier Avenue Junior High School, with the current museum once operating as a girl’s shower room. The museum’s space will now total 3,504 square feet.

The funds raised will cover costs associated with new upgrades to the space such as new carpet along with new display cases, and other features and amenities common to most museums.

“We are also waiting to hear word on another grant that will assist the society on ways to properly display and collect old memorabilia,” added Koenig. “We are asking anyone who wishes to donate their time, to become a member or to contribute to this effort financially or with building materials, to get involved with this project.”

The society now has in its possession a lifeguard tower dating back to the 1950s that county officials removed from the sand in Hermosa Beach last July.

Ybarra, who has raised about $10,000 for the construction of a new surfing museum by way of the Aloha Days Festival, recently agreed to partner with the society and could possibly spend some of the funds on the expansion.

“We still are focused on building a surf museum,” said Ybarra. “The Historical Society is a steppingstone and we will most likely donate money raised according to space.”

The event, slated for this Saturday, May 17, will run from 5 to 10 p.m. at the Hermosa Playhouse. For more information, call Koenig at 990-0673 or Ybarra at 374-6191.