Twenty fifteen is a year of parties for Esther Bondareff ’37.

The legendary Cornell volunteer attended Cornell’s 150th at the Sesquicentennial celebration in West Palm Beach, February 14. “We had quite a mob,” she said. “We had a great time.”

It’s also the year Esther turns 100, on June 11. She has three parties lined up: one from her family, one from Cornell at the Breakers Hotel, and one from the Palm Beach Zoo, where she volunteers every Saturday, cleaning bird cages and making friends with the parrots.

Esther—who was the first woman president of the Cornell Club of Washington, DC, (among other positions) and who hosts meetings of the Cornell Club of Eastern Florida at her home—first volunteered at the zoo 27 years ago to help a rescued tiger cub.

“I went to see the tiger,” she said. “He sat in my lap and I never left.”