Dollars Pour in to Help Out Zoo

The letters from Southern California began arriving at the Chaffee Zoo a few days after Christmas.

From San Pedro, Burbank, Studio City, Hollywood, West Covina, Riverside and San Diego, people were answering a 9-year-old girl’s call to help save the zoo.

Tucked inside each letter was a donation -- from $1 to $100 dollars -- and a tribute to Angel Arellano, the Fresno fourth-grader who had highlighted the zoo’s hard times by donating $1 on Thanksgiving Day.

Inspired by her example, Fresno residents have given more than $72,000 to the “Dollars From Angels” fund set up by the local newspaper. When Angel’s story then appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Christmas Day, hundreds of letters stuffed with cash and checks -- now approaching $10,000 -- began pouring in from Southern California.

The envelopes are still arriving -- from Los Angeles residents who have never been to the Chaffee Zoo and from transplanted Fresnans who fondly recall the playground of their youth, then among the finest mid-sized municipal zoos in the country.

“Instead of going out to breakfast this morning, here’s $5,” read one note from a Riverside resident.

“I live in Studio City, very far from Fresno,” 11 year-old Vanessa Arriagada wrote. “To help your zoo, I am collecting donations from all of my family. Please find the money enclosed in the envelope.”

Patricia Webber, a Coronado resident who described herself as a “staunch animal lover,” wrote a check for $100. JoAnn Rizzo Anderson of West Covina said she was moved to donate because she grew up in Fresno in the 1950s -- when the zoo was the pride of a much smaller city.

“I remember when the zoo held a contest to name the newly acquired elephant, which was subsequently named ‘Nosey.’ I remember Joe the Bear, who would ring the cowbell to ask onlookers to throw peanuts to him.... I can’t imagine Fresno without a zoo.”

The 18-acre zoo in Roeding Park remains a lovely spot in a city with too few greenbelts and no shortage of strip malls. But zoo officials say they can no longer hide the years of neglect.

Many of the animal pens are too small or need considerable repair. Larger zoos no longer feel comfortable lending their animals to Fresno. The gorilla and polar bear, for instance, had to be shipped off because the zoo’s living quarters weren’t up to national standards. The lion died of cancer, and the female hippo died of old age.

Attendance is down, and without millions of dollars in capital improvements, officials say, the zoo is in danger of losing its accreditation.

Last March, voters defeated a sales tax hike for new exhibits and other projects. Jim Boren, the Fresno Bee’s editorial page editor, said the zoo was in dire need of a guardian angel.

On Thanksgiving Day, the girl with a weak spot for stray cats was sitting in the kitchen listening to three generations of elders bemoan the zoo’s decline. Angel grabbed her aunt’s stationery, the one bordered in animals, and scrawled a letter to the Bee that has changed the way this city of 420,000 sees its tattered treasure.

“I heard that the Chaffee Zoo is having money problems. I am very worried for the animals. I think if everybody in Fresno gave $1 to the Chaffee Zoo it would help a lot. Here’s my dollar.”

Boren decided to publish Angel’s letter -- in her own crooked handwriting -- next to his own editorial asking readers to follow her example. “If her name wasn’t Angel, we would have changed it to Angel,” he said. “Kids and animals. How can you miss?”

In the weeks that followed, the Roosevelt High School football team held a carwash to raise funds. Students at Sunnyside High School, which draws from some of the town’s poorer neighborhoods, collected $1,000. Local and state politicians have commended Angel’s “compassion and spirit.” She has become a local star, with cameras following her when she visits the zoo.

“The response has been overwhelming,” said the zoo’s Shelley Morrison. “Every day we pick up the mail and we’re surprised at the generosity of people, not only from our community but those all across Southern California.

Contributions may be sent to:

Dollars From Angels, Chaffee Zoo Maintenance Fund, 894 W. Belmont Ave., Fresno, CA 93728