Homeland Neighborhood Cultural Center–that nondescript 1958 parks building at Anaheim Street and Gundry Avenue, where any day of the week you can catch crumpers, Hmong dancers, West African drummers, graffiti muralists and others doing their thing–has snagged one of the nation’s top parks awards.

We’d heard in April that Homeland might be nominated for a major award, and apparently it was. Now, the Center has won the Dorothy R. Mullen Arts and Humanities Award from the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA).

A city press release describes it as ” the top cultural arts award in the parks and recreation profession.”

This marks the second time in two years that a Long Beach parks program has bagged a Mullen; in 2006, the Long Beach Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine’s mural arts program won the same award.

Uh, and the Mullen award is given for excellence in “planning and implementing arts and humanities programs to instill a lifetime appreciation of the arts,” also according to that same city press release.

So, how much money did they win?

“No money, just the glory I guess,” says Jane Grobaty, who is the parks department’s superintendent of community information.

(Plus, we’re betting someone from the city will get a free trip to Baltimore in October, to accept the award. Baltimore can be lovely that time of year.)

You can’t eat glory, but if you run a city parks department it definitely counts for something.

“If you’re applying for grants it’s nice to put that kind of thing in a grant so that people can see what kind of a program it is, and why it would be good to support it,” Grobaty says.

This is shaping up to be quite a year for the cultural arts center. Later in 2008, the city is supposed to break ground there on a 66-seat 2,742 square-foot theater that’ll be named for Homeland founder Manazar Gamboa.

Once the theater’s complete, they’ll use it to help revive Homeland’s writing and theater program–and to host open mike nights and poetry readings.

Now, which way to the crumping?

Tags: Baltimore, California, Dorothy R. Mullen Arts and Humanities Award, Homeland Neighborhood Cultural Center, Jane Grobaty, Long Beach, Long Beach Department of Parks Recreation and Marine, Manazar Gamboa, National Recreation and Park Association, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas