A multi-generational Black owned and operated family ranch nestled between Imperial Beach and San Ysidro is working to keep the legacy alive for future generations.
The core team at S&S Friendly Ranch, including a former star football player at Stanford University, works long hours to maintain a homestead and vacation spot named after founders Sim Wallace and Sarah Buncom.
The ranch hands say despite their hard work, the ongoing Tijuana sewage crisis and the foul stench from the pollution has put challenges on their business. They say they look forward to getting a resolution soon from Congress to fix a problem that has existed nearly a century but seems to have gotten worse this year as more money is needed to repair the nearby aging international wastewater treatment plant.
“It’s going to be increasingly difficult to remediate the situation without some form of human intervention.” said Frank Buncom IV, a former Stanford cornerback who has a background in human biology and laboratory research.
Working as a family
Along with Buncom IV, the current leadership of the ranch includes family members and cousins Derek Wallace, Frank Buncom III, and Diamond Brandon—children and grandchildren of the S&S founders.
This has been a place where a Black family was able to honestly achieve some level of the American dream…be landowners, to be stewards, to have their own businesses and have the space to do so.”
-Diamond Brandon.
“Overall, we want this to be a safe space for the entire community,” said Brandon. “This has been a place where a Black family was able to honestly achieve some level of the American dream…be landowners, to be stewards, to have their own businesses and have the space to do so.”
Their grandparents, siblings Sim Wallace and Sarah Buncom, established what locals and visitors have come to know as a welcoming safe space for moments of reconnection with nature.
While Sarah and Sim were the landowners, extended family members have played a role in assisting with needs over the years and supporting the siblings’ efforts, said ranch leader Brandon, who manages events.
“Our grandparents both played instrumental roles in our lives in different ways,” added Brandon. “No hurdle is too big to honor that…it’s worth all the hardship, it’s worth all the sacrifice, it’s worth all the joy.”
Rural living
Originating from a family accustomed to rural living, Wallace and Buncom purchased 10 acres of land minutes from Interstate 5 in 1980.
Their parents, Deartis and Theresa Wallace, instilled in them and 10 other siblings entrepreneurship and ownership throughout the family’s journey from Texas to the Coachella Valley and eventually San Diego County.
In the last few years, their children, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren through a non-profit organization are committed to four pillars—educating community members, regenerative farming, caring for rescued animals, and an open space for personal and wellness events—to guide their mission: To connect the broader community to immersive agricultural experiences while stewarding the earth.
The S&S Friendly Ranch at the intersection of Sunset Avenue and Hollister Street and minutes from the international border also remains “a safe place to convene, unearth purpose, and tap into the land,” according to the organization.
In an interview with The Coronado News, the family members shared about the land that has sustained their family for generations, a sliver of their years-long journey.
We all have our other jobs as well…But we want to show love to this land, and it helps to have many hands.”
Frank Buncom IV
“We all have our other jobs as well,” said Buncom IV. “But we want to show love to this land, and it helps to have many hands.”
‘Running around with goats barefoot’
The former Stanford football player garnered Pac-12 All-Academic honors three times, according to the school. He now finds himself balancing his time in a part-time role at New Leaf Climate Partners, an investment and advisory firm focused on innovative reforestation, and being the president and chief friendly officer of the ranch.
His late grandfather Frank James Buncom Jr. played for the San Diego Chargers and Cincinnati Bengals, and in 1976 was inducted as a member in the Chargers Hall of Fame following his unexpected passing in 1969 at age 29, according to the family and online reports.
“I need to work on being less of a workaholic,” added Buncom IV. “It’s truly been a labor of love for me…I grew up here in San Diego…very much a city boy…now I’m running around with goats barefoot, doing yoga and headstands in the morning… My college self would have no idea who the heck I am, which I think is a beautiful thing.”
The turned rancher/farmer has a bachelor’s degree in human biology and is now leading multiple projects at the ranch alongside a close network of volunteers with Wallace and Buncom who also tend the gardens and care for the animals.
Servicing Every Soul
Through their 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization Servicing Every Soul, the team wants others to share in the open green space they consider a privilege that they had through their childhood.
“It’s a rarity to have this experience, and it’s even more rare to look up and see black and brown faces that are leading in these spaces,” said Buncom IV. “To be able to pass that down, it’s been incredibly enriching for me to see young black and brown folks look up and like ‘oh like hey, like what, you’re doing this? Like yeah!’… That’s been super special for me.”
S&S Friendly Ranch has welcomed the growing 250 family members for reunions every two years, as well as young children from the community for Youth Ranch Day. The ranch also is home for A Women’s Health and Wellness Event and a Young Professionals Retreat.
The ranch also has taught the younger generation about ancestral legacy and history through a Juneteenth celebration that included elected officials.
Along with hosting events and bringing in the community, they are working to grow with donations and grants.
“We’ve gotten some small grants…but we’re hoping to go out for the bigger fish,” said Brandon.
Most recently, REI has donated tents for overnight events, and the team has an up-and-coming partnership with Amazon, expected to help them grow their food force, they said.
“We are also volunteers…all the dollars that we’ve got to date for grants have gone directly into our programming,” said Buncom IV. “That’s what it’s taken to get this operation off the ground, and that’s where our hearts have been into loving this land here. … Right now everything is give, give, give, give, and the beautiful thing about it is that the community that we’re trying to pour into has been nurturing us and giving back to us.”
The growing list of S&S Friendly Ranch visitors includes folks from Arizona and international tourists from Germany and Russia, whose rural living experience has included an RV camper or immersive campsite experience.
“Everyone who’s come has been different races, different ages, different backgrounds, different states.” said Brandon. “People come down here and have the time of their lives, and that’s what we want to provide, a safe space for everyone.”
Tijuana River Valley safety challenges
Although visitors express wonderful stays at the ranch in online reviews, the team shared that they’ve hosted curious visitors who questioned the unique smell from the decades-long sewage crisis posed by the Tijuana River, found half a mile south of S&S Friendly Ranch.
“What has been created here in the Tijuana River you can argue it is not nature, it is not natural, what has transcended is from human intervention,” said Buncom IV.
Rain floods in the Tijuana River Valley are not uncommon.
The core team said that these floods wipe out crops in local ranches and the community’s gardens, forcing families to wait four to six months to regrow crops.
Livelihoods affected
“For some people that’s their livelihood, so that’s awful,” said Brandon. “For the people who’ve been out here for generations, and they’re raising their families out here, for our government to completely ignore the fact that a strategy needs to happen… Real humans are being impacted, real animals are being impacted.”
A rain flooding earlier this year caused more than two dozen horse rescues by local ranchers and the US Border Patrol San Diego Sector, according to reports.
Scarred from a great flood in the 1990s, Brandon said her grandfather, Sim Wallace, decided to raise the ground 1 to 2 feet higher above the surrounding ground with berms that protect around the ranch.
“That’s the last time I remember it [S&S Friendly Ranch] majorly flooding,” said Brandon. “A couple of weeks ago we did have heavy rain and some of the other ranches were like really impacted.”
Apart from constant floods, the more than 10 family ranches adjacent to Hollister Street and around the valley deal with the “horrible” stench of sewage that increases in smell at night, and that has affected overnight event plans, Buncom IV said.
Buncom III said the smell is “embarrassing,” and they can tell when a sewage spill occurs “because you could smell the stench throughout the whole day.”
In considering ways to help with the sewage crisis, Buncom III said he joins community members at events hosted by elected officials, including a recent Community Town Hall for Imperial Beach residents with County Supervisor Nora Vargas at the local library.
Tree project
Potential plans about how to use existing resources to help mitigate the long-standing environmental crisis are not off the table for the ranch team.
“I’m trying to do a big tree planting project here and the county land for a bunch of reasons…flood prevention, air quality,” said Buncom IV. “The benefits are pretty enumeral. … We’re trying to make it a community effort for all the things that we’re trying to get down here.”
Buncom IV, who lives on the immersive campsite, said he hopes to get a couple of hundred trees on the ranch and more along the Tijuana River with support from Nación Verde, an independent organization in Tijuana that works in restoring and reforesting forest ecosystems with plants native to the region.
‘Reciprocity’
The core team shares their wealth of knowledge with some of the youngest in the family by teaching them to drive a tractor and to help with events.
“We don’t think about it often, but it’s a very unique experience to be able to come to a ranch and just be in nature and interact with animals,” said Brandon. “It’s just really opening up this space to give people a little taste of what we had naturally coming up.”
The ranch will host Well-Grounded Music & Poetry Jam on Oct. 6, featuring sound bowl meditation and a community bonfire. The team said they will continue to update and fill out their event schedule which can be found on Eventbrite, which also includes a Animal Husbandry Volunteer Day.
The S&S team welcomes volunteers in any capacity. For more information about S&S Friendly Ranch, visit their official website at: https://www.ssfriendlyranch.org/.
