Wild Space Gallery in St. Petersburg

Happy Monday to you. I'm Charlie Belcher coming to you from St. Petersburg. Wild Space Gallery, supporting artists but animals at the same time. In time, let's... Let me explain. Actually, even better, let's let Mallory explain. Mallory Likes Dimit is CEO of the Florida Wildlife Quarter Foundation. Let's start there, Mallory. What is the Florida Wildlife Quarter Foundation? The Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to connect, protect, and restore the Florida Wildlife Corridor, this 18-million-acre geography across the state of Florida. And our mission is all about connection, so connecting the landscape together, but also connecting people to the mission and to the environment and to the opportunity to get outdoors in Florida and enjoy all that we have here. This corridor really from the Everglades up through into Georgia, Alabama. It's, it's talking about letting, letting animals migrate, letting them move how they would have naturally and have naturally for thousands of years. Before we put up roads and subdivisions and that sort of thing, right? That's right. It's about connecting all of our habitat needs for their regular movements and also just preserving all of the species habitat we have for the diversity we have in Florida so that those areas continue to provide services to people as well. So it's about people and wildlife. And we use art and storytelling to really make that come to life, which is why we have Wild Space Gallery here. Yes, the Wild Space Gallery, great way to... Highlight it, educate people about it, but also support artists at the same time. Tell me about the gallery. That's right. So the gallery uses artists, local artists, and artists from around Florida and beyond really to capture people's hearts and imagination for what is possible, what are we trying to save so that they make that connection, so that they feel inspired to want to protect the corridor, they want to come here potentially and learn about the art, but they're also learning about our mission. So it's this great double attraction. This is open to the public. People can come in. When is the gallery open? The gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m. We're always here on second Saturdays, so that's a good time to come to St. Pete, visit us, and other galleries that are open. And the Art Walk? Yes, second Saturday, Art Walk, and then we do a lot of special events. The gallery itself, two different exhibits at different times, so you never know what you might see in there, but it's always going to tie back to the mission somehow. That's right. So it's a chance for people to come in, learn about our mission, learn about the art and artists, fall in love with it, and then want to learn more about the corridor. Yeah. And then you get a nice little shop here too, which again, has been curated as local as possible, but it also, again, drives people back to the mission. That's right. And some of the products actually come from within the Florida Wildlife Corridor. Nice. Very nice. Website I should send people to for more information about all of this? Is floridawildlifecorridor.org. Florida Wildlife Corridor. In St. Petersburg, Charlie Belcher, Fox 13 News.