Elephants with a picture of Lily Tomlin, a Betty Boop doll, and one carrying a surfboard were my focus yesterday at the Grand Auction of the 2013 Elephant Parade in Dana Point.
My wife Cindy standing next to the CA Surfer Elephant.
The event really was a perfect combination of business involvement, art, and a global cause with tremendous cooperation and leadership from the City of Dana Point.
It was the 2013 Elephant Parade and the first time the event has been held in a U.S. city.
Hey, the public and private sectors can get along and so can environmentalists and businesses.
I’ve spent much of my career focused on human needs in the nonprofit world and as a writer and consultant to small businesses – and of course, portraying issues as an actor, too.
Why are elephants important? Marc Spits, the co-founder of the global Elephant Parade talked to me about the important role elephants play in the Thai environment.
Dana Yarger, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for the Elephant Parade, said the elephant is like a metaphor for the environment and a number of other issues. He said if he were to have an Elephant Parade in Los Angeles, then he could envision a number of children in foster care painting an elephant.
We are not separate from our environment and the human-animal conflict is real in Asia. The Elephant Foundation also works with Thai farmers to show how to mitigate crop damage without injuring or killing the elephants.
I wrote a series of articles on The Elephant Parade for my role as the LA Business News Examiner.
Here’s one article and at the end of it, there are links to additional articles. I hope you read it.
Dana Yarger is hoping other U.S. cities will contact him.
You can also link here to the Elephant Parade website.
Don Simkovich 
Posted on November 18, 2013
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