Smithsonian's National Zoo and DC Cupcakes Collaborate to Benefit the Animals

By Karin Korpowski-Gallo

Washington, DC - The Smithsonian’s National Zoo will be featured on the season two premiere of DC Cupcakes, airing Feb. 25 at 10:30 p.m. on TLC. In honor of the Zoo’s episode, Georgetown Cupcake will sell a honey-banana-flavored cupcake named “Gone Bananas!” and donate the entire proceeds to benefit the Zoo’s conservation programs. The promotion will run from Feb. 18 to March 4 at both the Georgetown and Bethesda cupcake stores.

DC Cupcakes follows sisters and business partners Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis and their colorful crew at Georgetown Cupcake. Portions of the premiere were filmed at the Great Ape House in November to celebrate the birthdays of two male western lowland gorillas, Kwame, 11, and Kojo, 9.

As part of the show, Georgetown Cupcake presented the Zoo with an original, colorful, life-sized gorilla sculpture made from hundreds of cupcakes and shared hundreds of cupcakes with Zoo visitors. Animal keepers decorated the primates’ indoor habitats with enrichment items, including edible “gorilla cupcakes” made by the Zoo’s commissary staff. These animal-only cupcakes were made from bananas, primate biscuits, unflavored gelatin and water and resembled Georgetown Cupcake’s red velvet cupcakes.

This is not the first collaboration with the National Zoo and Georgetown Cupcake. The cupcakery has been a participant of the Zoo’s largest fundraising event, ZooFari, in the past and will be part of the 2011 ZooFari event to be held May 19 at the Zoo.

To view Smithsonian’s National Zoo's web page on Zoo and Aquarium Visitor, go to: http://www.zandavisitor.com/forumtopicdetail-3223-Smithsonian's_National_Zoo