Volume 3, No. 16. August 22,2003
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A
shower to remember
First, to answer one obvious question, yes Home Depot, the nationwide chain
of hardware warehouse stores, does offer bridal registries, at least in the
Southern states. But, no, they don’t normally do baby shower registries,
especially when the individual being showered is an elephant.
“This
was the first baby shower for the Fort Worth Zoo, and as far as we know the
first for an elephant anywhere,” said Lyndsay Nantz, communications director
for the zoo in Texas. The baby shower grew out of the zoo’s public relations
effort to educate the community about Asian elephant reproduction and generate
excitement about an upcoming birth. “We were a little hesitant because
of the anthropomorphic issue of doing a baby shower for an elephant,” Nantz
said, “but we still thought it was a creative idea and a new way of announcing
the pregnancy.”
On
top of that, it gave the zoo a new fundraising device: or, more to the point,
a new device-gathering drive. By registering Rasha at the Dallas-Fort Worth
metroplex’s 12 Home Depots, the zoo encouraged patrons to donate tools
for the elephant keepers. “That was able to offset the cost of buying supplies
throughout the year,” Nantz said: “probably enough stuff to last several
years.” In all, $5,000 worth of items rained on Rasha’s July 30 shower.
The
gift tally included brooms, buckets, pruners, a drill accessory set, extension
chords, fans, flashlights, a garden hose and nozzles, hammers, insect repellent,
batteries, work gloves, pliers, post hole diggers, rakes, shovels, a sledgehammer,
tarps, trash cans, wheelbarrows and wheelbarrow tires, a wrench set, paint brushes
(to encourage her hobby of painting), wire brushes and 17 rolls of duct tape.
Another gift Rasha received that was on her registry was a Mexican palm tree,
which the zoo wants to add to her exhibit.
The
tree was the priciest item, but the zoo included enough suggestions on the registry
to offer gift-givers a wide variety of prices. “We wanted to make sure
we could include the entire community,” Nantz said. “This way a child
with an allowance would be able to participate.”
Typical of showers, not all the gifts were registered. Rasha also received two apples, two plastic balls, three stuffed animals and a one-ton bag of peanuts. “Most of those came from kids,” Nantz said. Additionally, Rasha received many greeting cards and letters. “The best thing we got out of all of this was a better understanding of how important elephants are to (Fort Worth Zoo) members and the community,” Nantz said.
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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