You Belong
to This Place.
Every month, a piece of the Great Lakes Basin region arrives in your mailbox. Designed to connect you to this water, this land, its people, and the fight to defend them. Twelve dollars a month. One envelope. Something magical inside.
The Friends of the Lakes Club is a belonging. It is a monthly reminder that you are connected to something ancient, unique, and alive. Twenty-one percent of the world's fresh surface water, the lakes, the rivers, the wetlands, the wildlife, and the people. The Great Lakes Basin that sustains us all.
Every envelope you receive is made possible by this community. And every dollar of profit goes directly back into the fight to protect this place. This is how we defend the Great Lakes Basin Region—together, every single month.
Inside Your Envelope
Every month we pack something of this place into an envelope and send it to you. Words, art, and goodies that connect you to the Great Lakes Basin Region and the living things that call it home.
Why We Choose Paper
We live in a world that tells you going digital is going green. We don't believe that.
Data centers are one of the fastest-growing threats to the Great Lakes Basin. They consume billions of gallons of fresh water every year for cooling—water drawn directly from the same lakes and aquifers that forty million people depend on for drinking water. The energy demand is staggering. The noise and light pollution they impose on surrounding communities is relentless. Their large industrial diesel generators pump nitrogen oxide and PM2.5 directly into the air communities breathe. The footprint is invisible, so it is largely ignored—until the damage is done. And it is accelerating.
We chose paper deliberately. Not the kind that ends up in a landfill before you've finished your coffee—we're not Amazon. Everything inside your Friends of the Lakes Club envelope is designed to be kept. The art. The postcard. The sticker. The story. These are not disposable things.
This envelope is an act of intention. It is connection made physical. And it costs this place far less than the cloud ever will.
We do our best to print our materials on a combination of recycled post-consumer waste paper, bamboo, hemp, and other tree-free and low-impact alternatives. But in the event we do use conventional paper, we'll offset that by helping to plant more trees. Everything we do is done with intention.
When you open this envelope, you are holding something that was made with intention, and designed to stay with you. That is not an accident. That is the point.
Of Profits Support Our Rights of the Lakes Great Lakes Basin Initiative
Every dollar of profit from the Friends of the Lakes Club goes directly into our Rights of the Lakes Great Lakes Basin Initiative—the fight to give the lakes, rivers, and watersheds of this region the legal standing they deserve, and we humans a standing in court right along with them. Your envelope helps fund the movement.
Learn About Rights of the Lakes Movement →Meet the Artists Behind the Club.
The art inside every Friends of the Lakes Club mailing is created by artists who live, work, and find inspiration throughout the Great Lakes Basin. Meet the people bringing this place to life through painting, illustration, photography, mixed media, and more.
Explore their stories, creative practices, and the work they are creating for the Club.
Meet the Artists →Be Part of Something Magical
Forty million people depend on this water. Hundreds of species call the Great Lakes Basin home. And now, every month, you can be part of the community that refuses to let it be taken from us. One envelope. One connection. One fight worth having.