On Saturday November 13th, five mentoring friendships and two Friends for Youth staff volunteered at the San Francisco Zoo. The November day was sunny and warm, a seaside breeze wisping through the grounds. The Friends for Youth team was assigned to a very special project: designing and painting Holiday present boxes for the animals.
During the holiday season the Zoo likes to get its animals involved in the giving spirit. They put presents of bones and other animal-friendly fare inside festively painted cardboard boxes. Then they place these gifts inside the animals’ habitats for them to peck, paw, slash, pounce, spring, rip, claw and ultimately enjoy.
The Friends for Youth team created seven brightly painted gift-boxes for the animals. There were Christmas-themed boxes, Giants-themed boxes, a Kwanzaa-themed box, and other, more abstract, brightly painted gift boxes.
Everyone had fun setting up their paint stations, painting their boxes and cleaning up their stations afterwards. One Friendship got doused with water when the hose they were using to wash out a paint bucket went wild. Afterwards, everyone got snacks and a free ride on the San Francisco Zoo’s real Steam Engine.
3 comments:
hopefully the animals aren't given boxes with dangerous staples and tape, like they were for the halloween event.
That was horrifying!! The people in charge at the Zoo need to take better care to inspect what goes out to the animals.
We were told to remove all staples and tape from the boxes before painting them.
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