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Pretend City Children’s Museum set to open in Irvine.

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Remember playing outdoors, riding your bike for miles and miles, and roaming the neighborhood until your mother called you inside at dusk? Pam Shambra knows that in many Orange County neighborhoods, those memories are just that – memories.

“The world has changed,” said Shambra, who helped spearhead the creation of Santa Ana’s Discovery Science Center in the 1990s. “Children playing outdoors, independently – that’s not perceived as safe anymore.” Cue the scheduled classes and sports, as well as television, video games and computers.

Shambra hopes to give thousands of Orange County kids an outlet for imaginative, independent play when the Pretend City Children’s Museum opens Aug. 30.

Shambra mounted a years-long campaign to bring a children’s museum to Orange County.

Those years of work have culminated in a 28,000-square-foot facility tucked into an industrial park in Irvine, just south of the Irvine Spec- trum Center. Shambra, the museum’s president, has assembled a board of directors and raised $11.3 million to get the fledgling museum off the ground. The goal now: to raise $17.5 million to finish the exhibits and get the nonprofit attraction off to a strong start.

While the Discovery Science Center targets children ages 6 through 13 and focuses on science and math, the new Pretend City is geared toward infants through 8-year-olds. The focus is imaginative play and exploration. Children can explore many facets of a miniature, kid-size city to learn the meaning of community and problem-solving, Shambra said.

Targeting very young children was a calculated goal, Shambra said. “The first five years are the most critical in early development and in helping children attain their potential,” she said.

In light of budget cuts that have been chipping away at California school curriculums for years, Shambra hopes that the museum’s exhibits will also help teachers bring lessons to life.

To that end, the museum staff is largely made up of people with degrees in education or related fields, including art, marine biology and music.

Pretend City aims to be a hands-on, sensory learning experience that kids can cycle through at their own pace.

The “city” includes a grocery store, a cafe, a post office, a police station, a gas station and an art studio where children can create art on paper, on canvas or in a kiln.

Interactive features include a farm where kids can reap a pretend harvest; a 500-square-foot house that will feature videos of a different real-life family every few months and give kids an opportunity to learn about various cultures and traditions; a marina where kids can guide mini sailboats using wind and water; and a beach where kids learn about pollution when too much “trash” closes the water to the public.

Familiar sights include a mini Orange “Circle,” and a mural of the Laguna Beach lifeguard tower.

Programs will include traveling exhibits, concerts, music classes, story times, private evenings and classes for children with special needs, including autism.

Due to the recession, many nonprofits have wrestled with a decrease in charitable giving. Pretend City opted to focus on “next generation” philanthropists, who typically represent second or third generations of local families with a history of philanthropy, as well as young entrepreneurs who are new to charitable giving.

The average age of Pretend City’s board members is 40, and the average gift among board members is $246,000, Shambra said. Corporate sponsors include Ralphs and Kaiser Permanente, while community partners include Healthy Smiles, the Orange County Fire Authority, the county Department of Education and the Irvine Police Department.

Bill Lyon is the Pretend City board president. The son of Gen. William Lyon, founder of William Lyon Homes, the younger Lyon said census data show 450,000 kids under age 8 live in Orange County.

“There’s such a large concentration of young children and no resource for them here, so the need for a museum of this kind is obvious,” Lyon said.

The museum will be at 29 Hubble in Irvine.

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