The renowned primatologist Jane Goodall will return to San Pedro next week to lead the L.A. celebration marking the U.N.’s International Day of Peace in Point Fermin Park, 807 Paseo Del Mar.
The festival, on Saturday, Sept. 21, is free to attend and additional parking will be provided on 22nd Street between Signal and Miner streets.
Those attending are invited to bring their beach chairs, water and blankets.
Goodall, considered the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees and a UN messenger of the Peace, Roots & Shoots groups, will lead the festivities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., when there will also be live music throughout the day, food trucks, an eco festival, youth projects, pet adoptions, a photo booth, sustainable vendors and a parade of giant peace dove puppets.
Goodall, who turned 90 in April, is expected to speak from the park’s bandshell at around 3:30 p.m.
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The Rotary International Action Group for Peace will livestream a global “Concert for Peace II: From Harm to Harmony” from 10 to 11 a.m. in the park. The concert will benefit three nonprofits benefitting refugees, homelessness and human rights/medical health.
Goodall helped lead the first San Pedro Day of Peace celebration in 2003 in Joan Milke Flores Park at Angel’s Gate.
Other highlights will include inspirational messages, environmental groups, arts and crafts, and an emphasis on what organizers described as “all that is good, kind, and positive.”
Goodall was last in San Pedro in 2017, the year she served as grand marshal of the Rose Parade. She took a detour from the festivities in Pasadena to also appear at a reception and fundraiser at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro with other celebrities, including Betty White and Tippi Hedren.
Former San Pedro science teacher John Zavalney and his wife, Darlene, have been friends of Goodall’s since the 1990s and have helped organize and host the renowned scientist’s Harbor Area visits.
Goodall’s 45-year-long study of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, challenged some of the scientific beliefs at the time.
In a 2017 telephone interview, during her last visit, Goodall said her lifelong work with animals was a calling from childhood.
“Everybody laughed when I was 10 and said I wanted to go live with the animals,” she told a Southern California News Group reporter. “They said why didn’t I dream about what I could do? Girls simply didn’t do that sort of thing.”
Goodall received a doctorate in ethology from Cambridge University in 1962 after she’d already begun her field research.
More recently, Goodall has devoted her energies to lecturing, writing books and visiting schools throughout the world to speak on the importance of conservation. Goodall still travels widely from home bases in both England and Tanzania.
Darlene Zavalney, who was busy taking care of the last-minute details this week for the event that she and John are again helping to pull together, said the day at Point Fermin will be designed to uplift all those who attend and is something that is needed.
“It’s important that we celebrate the good things going on in this world,” she said.
For parking and free shuttle information, go to peacedayLA.org.
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