Betty White’s Zoo Pals Scholarships

The Los Angeles Zoo’s Betty White’s Zoo Pals program is now accepting applications for the 2024-2025 school year. This is a special grant-funded program for Title I schools that provides Kindergarten-5th grade teachers and their students with FREE supplies, programming, and a Zoo field trip.

To be eligible for a Betty White’s Zoo Pals scholarship, a school must be within Los Angeles County and have received Title 1 funding in the 2023-24 or 2024-2025 school year.

Participating schools will receive the following:

Classroom Visit #1: Our program instructors will visit your classroom to help your students begin to develop the skills needed to think like a scientist.
Classroom Visit #2: During our second classroom visit, your students will participate in a hands-on science activity and act like a scientist.
Field Trip: Your class will come on a free field trip to the L.A. Zoo and use the skills they learned to be a scientist.
Betty White’s Zoo Pals programs will be offered on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from October 2024 through June 2025.

Apply

Applications for the 2024-2025 school year will begin Monday, August 12, 2024. All teachers interested in applying for the scholarship must submit an application by Monday, September 2, 2024. Spaces are limited, and not all qualifying schools may be selected for participation.

About Betty

Betty White was a supporter of the L.A. Zoo and a benefactor of the Zoo Pals Scholarship.

For more than fifty years, Betty White was one of the Los Angeles Zoo’s most ardent admirers and devoted benefactors. Throughout her busy Hollywood career, she remained a steady presence at the Zoo. Always ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work, she was a longtime GLAZA trustee, a Zoo Commissioner, served on countless committees, and worked behind the scenes to raise funds for new animal habitats and initiatives. And, because of plans that she put in motion before she died, her legacy will continue to live on in myriad ways here, including establishing a private foundation supporting the place she called her “home away from home.”

Betty passed away on December 31, 2021, just weeks shy of her 100th birthday. Betty’s own love of animals began very early, and she hoped to spark that same fascination in children who might not otherwise have the opportunity to visit the Zoo. The private foundation she established before her death has provided generous funding to various programs, including Zoo Pals. That funding allowed the Zoo to greatly expand the program’s offerings and capacity. In June 2023, the program was renamed “Betty White’s Zoo Pals” in her honor.