Lauren Sánchez flies helicopters, but she also loves the plains.
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Sánchez, announced that the Bezos Earth Fund was donating $60 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation at its gala on Saturday.
The whopping grant aims to restore and conserve the Northern Great Plains and “grasslands and longleaf pine forests” of the Southeast.
A source told Page Six that, “The news was announced during a 20-minute fireside chat between Jeff, Lauren and [hedge funder philanthropist] Paul Tudor Jones in front of guests.”
The new grant coincided was the foundation’s 40th anniversary gala in NYC.
“The world is so much better today than it was a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, 500 years ago,” said Bezos. “Except in one way. And that is that the natural world is not as good today as it was 500 years ago, in our preindustrial society. The question is: Can we take that one exception to life not being better and turn it around? And we can.”
Sánchez said of the couple’s fund: “Kids don’t want to protect what they don’t know! That’s why I’m so excited about the Bezos Earth Fund’s Greening America’s Cities program and the work they are doing in transforming spaces like parking lots into beautiful parks.”
She added, “To see the smiles on these kids’ faces, is really worth everything. They then recognize how beautiful nature can be and they want to protect it, it’s the same thing that happened to me. “
The Bezos Earth Fund has provided $90 million in funding over three years to the foundation and over 200 local partners.
“This is of significant importance as the grant will revitalize 1.6 million acres of vital US landscapes,” said an eco insider of the latest donation. “The grant marks the largest single philanthropic commitment for landscape restoration to the NFWF.”
About 350 guests were also at the event that ended with a performance from Lionel Richie, followed by fireworks, we hear.
