Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar and former Mayor Richard Riordan will be honored tonight at the Los Angeles Zoo during the 42nd annual Beastly Ball.
Gellar will receive the second Tom Mankiewicz Leadership Award from the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, which raises money for the zoo.
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.
Gellar, best known for her starring role on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which ran on The WB from 1997-2001 and UPN from 2001-2003, is a patron of the association's Safari Club and an advocate for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Project Angel Food, Habitat for Humanity, breast cancer research and CARE, which fights global poverty.
"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.
Mankiewicz, who died in 2010, was the association's chairman and the writer of the screenplays of the James Bond films "Diamonds are Forever," "Live and Let Die" and "The Man with the Golden Gun" along with "The Cassandra Crossing" and "The Eagle Has Landed."
Former Guns N' Roses lead guitarist Slash received the inaugural award last year.
Riordan is being honored for his efforts at making the zoo an international leader in the preservation of endangered species and a conservation center for the care and study of wildlife.
More than 900 people are expected for the Beastly Ball, which is expected to raise more than $1 million for the zoo.
See more details about the ball, and how to donate, by clicking here.
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