Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar and former Mayor Richard Riordan were honored Saturday night at the Los Angeles Zoo during the 42nd annual Beastly Ball.
Gellar received the second Tom Mankiewicz Leadership Award from the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, which raises money for the zoo. She is a patron of the association's Safari Club.
"One of the places that I've come to love before I even had children was the L.A. Zoo," Gellar told ABC7. "Now getting to see it through my daughter is just the most amazing experience."
The award recognizes members of the entertainment industry who have excelled in establishing meaningful and lasting programs that contribute to the welfare of the world's natural and civic environment, association president Connie Morgan said.
"I started because my mother taught me a long time ago that even why you have nothing, there's way to give back and what you get in return for that is tenfold," Gellar said.
More than 900 people attended the Beastly Ball, which is expected to raise more than $1 million for the zoo. The zoo's new LAIR habitat, which houses amphibians, invertebrates and reptiles, was featured at the event which also includes a dinner, auction, animal feedings and the opportunity to observe small animals up close.
"We have to raise money because we've got a lot of mouths to feed," actress Betty White, a co-chair of Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association's Board of Trustees, told ABC7.
Veronica Bellino
Betty White and Richard Riordan
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