A Pattern of Philanthropy
The giving history of the late Emily B. "Bootsie" Ettinger told us that she would likely arrange a generous estate gift to the Zoo through a bequest to the Zoo Society.
During her life, Mrs. Ettinger made 57 gifts to the Zoo Society throughout 15 consecutive years of loyal interest and support. Like many of our Lion's Pride members (people who have told us they have included the Zoo Society in a planned giving arrangement), her early gifts were small. The first 20 donations she made averaged about $30 each.
But even these small gifts were telling. Mrs. Ettinger shared her love of the Zoo by giving her loved ones memberships, animal adoptions and a tile. She even purchased two bricks so that her message, "Animals and their keepers...God bless this beautiful Zoo," would be engraved in the Zoo's Junction Plaza for all time.
Mrs. Ettinger and her family sponsored the Zoo's handsome hummingbird garden as a memorial to her late husband. In that garden, a prominent rock carries a distinctive bronze plaque that reads, "Hummingbird Garden: This garden dedicated as a Living Memorial to Richard E. Ettinger by his Family." Like so many of our Lion's Pride members, Mrs. Ettinger remembered the past and planned for the future.
"What a sweetheart she was," remembers Sandra Welch Boren, the former Associate Director of the Zoo Society and the current Program Officer for The Cemala Foundation in Greensboro.
"Bootsie just purely loved the Zoo...even though she could not visit as much as she would have liked. She read her Alive magazine and every correspondence we sent her. She knew what was going on at the Zoo. She wanted to share it with her children, and she brought them to the Zoo whenever she could."
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