A Giraffe has been sighted
in WA |
Hazel Wolf, commended as a Giraffe in 1984, was born March 10, 1898 and died in January 2000, fulfilling her plan to live in three centuries. What inspires us here at the Giraffe Project is not that Wolf lived so long but that she was still sticking her neck out into that third century. Fully present, acute of judgment and sharp of wit, Hazel kept speaking truth to power and spurring the powerless to action. An activist since 1912, Wolf’s last work was in environmental education for inner city kids. Here’s a radio public service announcement the Giraffe Project distributed about her: When Hazel Wolf was a youngster, she got concerned that there were no sports for girls at her school. So she stuck her neck out and pressed the headmaster to allow girls’ basketball teams. That was in 1912. Since then, she’s gotten concerned about civil liberties, equal rights, health and housing, foreign policy and the environment. Again and again, she’s stuck her neck out to help change things that concerned her, in her Seattle homebase and in the world. Hazel Wolf is a lifelong Giraffe. And here’s a story from The Giraffe Heroes Program, the curriculum that brings school children real heroes: Hazel Wolf was two years old at the beginning of this century—she was born in Canada in 1898. When she was 14 years old, she started sticking her neck out to make the world a better place, and she’s never stopped. Back in 1912, Hazel thought it wasn’t fair for her school to have sports for boys but not for girls. That’s the way it was at almost all schools then, but Hazel didn’t care if other people thought that was fine. She was sure it was wrong. She asked her school principal to let girls play basketball. He said he’d give her equipment and time on the school court if she could find 10 girls who wanted to play—and he was sure she couldn’t. But, Hazel had 10 girls waiting in the hall outside the principal’s office! He was surprised, but he laughed and kept his promise. Ever since, Wolf has surprised people, made them laugh, and gotten them to see things her way. |
She wants people to be treated fairly, to have jobs, safe housing, peace, and a healthy environment. Over and over again, she’s gotten involved in issues that other people fight about. Wolf finds ways to get them to stop fighting, to laugh, and to cooperate. In recent years she’s worked to save the last of the ancient trees in the Pacific Northwest. At the same time, she insists that timber workers must have other jobs to do instead of cutting down these trees, even though timber workers and environmentalists rarely help each other. A nature lover, Wolf is a hiker and a kayaker. She’s also an officer of the Seattle Audubon Society, a group that studies birds and protect the places where they live. Wolf has started more new Audubon groups that anyone else in the entire US. When Wolf found that Native Americans and the big environmental groups weren't working together, she went to the tribal leaders and got them to join forces with groups like Audubon. Together they have a better chance of protecting the land, air and water that they all care so deeply about. Wolf has had very little time to herself in her long life and she’s stood up to powerful people who haven’t agreed with her. She’s even kept her sense of humor when faced with going to jail for peacefully protesting. “I always thought if I ever went to jail, I’d get to work a jigsaw puzzle,” she said. “But the one opportunity I had, I didn’t get to finish it because someone bailed me out.” Many years ago, she almost lost her chance to be a US citizen because some immigration officials called her a troublemaker. But to thousands of people, Hazel Wolf isn’t a troublemaker—she’s a hero—and she’s a Giraffe. |
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