Environmental and Wildlife Groups Go Vegan!

One of the two largest initiatives of the Gregory J. Reiter Memorial Fund is a partnership with Food for Thought – a North America-wide program of Animal Place, the California organization that inspired Greg and me to become vegetarian in the year 2000, and then vegan some years later.

Food for Thought provides resources to help organizations adopt vegan or vegetarian menu policies for their events.  Through the Greg Fund, I have helped Food for Thought expand from its initial focus on animal shelters to also support wildlife and environmental organizations.

In 2016, the Fund made an initial grant to support information and outreach to environmental and wildlife organizations. Then in 2017, the Fund made an additional contribution specifically to provide one-time recognition grants to environmental and wildlife organizations that newly adopt vegan or vegetarian menu policies.

As of today, 28 North American wildlife organizations have signed up as formal endorsers or supporters of the Food for Thought program, along with ten environmental organizations.

Since we launched the grant program in spring 2017, these wildlife organizations have received recognition checks for newly adopting vegan or vegetarian menu policies and endorsing the Food for Thought program:

• Animal Help Now (Boulder, CO)
• Colorado Native Bird Care and Conservation (Lyons, CO)
• Fauna Foundation (Carignan, Québec)
• Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation (Pueblo, CO)
• Wildcare (San Rafael, CA)

Additionally, these environmental and wildlife organizations have newly become formal Food for Thought endorsers:

• Global Wildlife Conservation (Austin, TX)
• Our Children’s Earth Foundation (Napa, CA and Palm Beach, FL)
• Utah Interfaith Power and Light (Salt Lake City, UT)

Why is this important?  A growing body of evidence tells us that animal agriculture is a major contributor to global warming, a primary cause of worldwide deforestation and water waste, and a key threat to world wildlife survival.  More details in the information sheets Why Vegan for the Planet and Why Vegan for Wildlife.

Through the Greg Fund, I look forward to continuing to work with Food for Thought to help many more environmental and wildlife organizations adopt vegan menu policies for their events.

~ Alysoun