Remembering Faith Maloney
Co-founder
It is with great sadness that we share the news that our friend and co-founder Faith Maloney passed away on August 4, 2022, from ovarian cancer.
Faith was 78 years old. She is survived by her daughters, Carragh and Eve; her son, David; and her grandchildren, Zoe and Jacob.
Until her final days, Faith gave of herself whenever called upon and set no limits on her willingness to do whatever needed to be done. Her generosity of spirit and reliability that you could set your watch by made her the bedrock center of Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. There will never be another Faith and we will miss her terribly as a friend, a founder and the heart of the Sanctuary. Our thoughts are with her family.
About Faith
In the earliest days of Best Friends, Faith was the de facto animal control officer for Kanab, then Kane County, Garfield County to the north, the town of Fredonia and Mohave County in Arizona, as well as the Paiute Tribe at Pipe Springs. At the same time, she was running Dogtown and personally (with the help of our earliest employee, Tyson, Faith's daughter Carragh and a few volunteers) caring for over 500 dogs every day. She knew every dog’s name and story and amazed visitors with her connection to the animals.
Faith was the first president of Best Friends and an early influencer at spay/neuter and no-kill conferences around the country. She was also a writer, winning the Dog Writers Association Award in 2000, and a contributor to every issue of Best Friends magazine since its launch in 1992, as well as a regular in the local newspaper.
In 1998 she co-created Best Friends’ How to Start an Animal Sanctuary workshop, which has been the gateway experience for dozens of no-kill organizations around the country. It is now an accredited university course in partnership with Southern Utah University.
On top of all that, Faith has been the face of the Sanctuary, hosting thousands of tours and having lunch with guests nearly every day at Angel Village.
At the Best Friends National Conference, she and psychologist Linda Harper presented sessions on how to cope with compassion fatigue and burnout long before those issues were widely recognized.
Faith touched the lives of countless individuals, humans and animals alike, and she will be missed.
