You might say we are “getting by” with more than “a little help” from our Earth Friends. The Earth Friends Wildlife Foundation, one of the most recent foundations to be inspired by our Spine of the Continent initiative (see this article), has joined our partners by helping to fund this necessary and ambitious work.

Earth Friends is a public foundation that provides support to conservation and wildlife protection groups working in the Western U.S., Northern Mexico, and Western Canada. The Wildlands Project is one of the 100 groups that Earth Friends has partnered with since its founding in 1995.

The committed people behind this organization are Rick Flory and his wife, Lee Robert, who serves as the executive director. Now retired from the hubbub of the pizza business after building the second largest Domino’s Pizza franchise in the U.S. with a whopping 87 stores, Rick devotes his time to Earth Friends.
Both Rick and Lee maintain that funding from their foundation should be provided to wildlife and habitat conservation groups in areas that it’s needed most. In addition, they want to make sure that the organizations they fund base their work on good science and incorporate a solid businesslike approach to conservation.

In their own words, “Earth Friends carries a message of hope, of our connectedness, of the dignity for all life forms, and of a great and urgent need. Together, we can make a world of difference.”

To learn more about Earth Friends, please visit their website at www.earthfriends.com.