Thrive's main social responsibility goal is to educate people about marine life. We believe that the easiest way to accomplish our goal is through local fish stores. When people come into a reef aquarium shop they are typically amazed at the variety of life seen in the aquariums.
This amazement is what got most of us in the hobby and helps us understand diversity in the ocean. This is why Thrive only supports local stores. We understand there are many good online retailers but they do not incite that amazement we get when we are standing in a store and gazing at all the various colorful marine life. We think that the marine aquarium hobby would fail without these brick and mortar stores helping to incite this amazement