In The Sanctuary’s hometown of Hohenwald, Tennessee, the second weekend of October is always cause for celebration when the city's annual Oktober Heritage Festival takes place.
The festival includes vendors, live entertainment, yard sales, food, and, on occasion, even a strolling elephant puppet. 2023’s festival was a busy one, and The Elephant Sanctuary was happy to play a part. Over the two-day event, we had just shy of 250 visitors in The Elephant Discovery Center and many more stopped by the information booth in the Outdoor Classroom. Sanctuary Staff and volunteers provided visitors with jack-o-lantern carving stencils and answered questions about Hohenwald’s resident elephants, which could be viewed, as always, via live stream in The Elephant Discovery Center.
The Sanctuary’s Elephant Discovery Center was completed in 2019 and serves as a source of information and inspiration about the needs of elephants in captivity, the crisis facing elephants in the wild, and the role of environmental sustainability in protecting human and animal habitats. The Discovery Center was designed to be a model for sustainable practices, and The Sanctuary Team appreciates any opportunity to share its work with friends and neighbors.