Enewsletter

Why Vegan has been such an essential part of the animal rights struggle that I had an interesting talk recently with a young activist, trying to explain how we did outreach without it! The discovery of Why Vegan was the Holy Grail for vegans!
-DA, CA, 5/27/04

Vegan Outreach: The Work That Needs To Be Done

How Why Vegan? Changed My Life

For a long time I was an avid meat eater. I loved my steak, and I preferred it bloody rare. Little did I care that the blood dripping from this meat came from a living, breathing, feeling animal that was some other animal's child, and possibly the mother of her own children. Little did I know the cruelty he endured between the time he was born until the moment he ended up on my plate. The animal brutality can easily be compared to scenes from The Passion of the Christ, if not even more horrific!
     Your pamphlet didn't cause an instantaneous change in me, but it certainly planted seeds in my mind. Months after reading the first Vegan Outreach booklet, as well as doing other research, I am a vegetarian. I simply cannot support cruelty to animals. I also am aiming to become vegan. The only animal foods I continue to eat are eggs from a local free-range chicken farm and butter churned for me by a friend from his single, hand-milked cow.
-HA, NY, 5/27/04

Big VO News!!

We are extremely excited to announce that Jon Camp (at right), the #2 leafleter in the Adopt a College program, has agreed to move to the Northeast to leaflet this underrepresented area. He is looking for a studio apartment near New Brunswick, NJ, but would consider other options in that area. If you have ideas / leads, send him an email: jon@veganoutreach.org

As he has an "at home" part-time job, Vegan Outreach can currently afford to keep him leafleting part-time for the fall semester. With your support, we can extend his efforts into the spring term. He will be able to reach thousands of students a month -- students that otherwise would almost certainly have graduated without ever receiving a full and compelling case for veganism.

Please consider a special donation today to help expand this necessary work!

Animal Rights 2004

Joe Espinosa, Jon Camp, Anne Green, Jack Norris, Matt Ball, and others will be at AR2004 (Jack Norris will be speaking, as well). Please stop by our table and tell Joe to smile!

If you are going to be there and would like to get together at some point, drop us an email!

New Contacts Added

Thanks to those who have volunteered!

Member Feedback

I wrote "Go Vegan" on the underside of one of my fins. While diving, it was visible to others, and it prompted questions from several people. I ended up giving Why Vegan pamphlets to them. I already got an email from one of them, a self-professed total carnivore. He said he read the literature, then went to the grocery store and bought several veggie-meat products to try!
-Lana Smithson

From Jon Camp:
I sent a copy of "A Meaningful Life" to a good friend of mine. Below are his comments:
     I got your letter today and just got done reading it. I agree with you that it is a really well articulated and realistic approach. Having read it makes me rather proud that you are going to be a part of specifically this organization. It has also inspired me to want to do some activism with you this summer. Between talking to you and reading it, I can see that I can be helpful to the cause of limiting suffering just by being honest with people and basically telling them roughly the same story I told you: that we have the freedom to choose what amount of suffering we want to participate in every time we sit down to eat. Even though I still eat some dairy (and very, very rarely eat meat), I am making choices, based solely on my own conscience, to limit the amount of suffering. I think one of the strongest points that the author makes is that veganism is not an end in and of itself, but rather a means to an end; I think that is a brilliant insight!

“So this is why I eat vegan dog food.”

From Greg Oschwald, Compassionate Action for Animals, University of Minnesota Chapter:
We were lucky enough to get a table at the student involvement fair during orientation at the U of M. Every Monday through Thursday until July 15, a new group of about 300 incoming freshmen spends 20 minutes looking at tables as part of the fair. So far, I have been leafleting in front of the table while another group member answers the questions of people who actually stop by and are interested in the group.

Also:
In his Animal Doctor column in the Washington Post, Michael Fox offers the following as a possible reason why a reader's dog likes to eat paper money: "It is my understanding that in the printing of paper money (at least in the United States), the sizing/finish that is put on the money contains an extract of animal fat or tallow called stearate."

Vegan Outreach can put your nonvegan money to good use! :-)
(Note: Stearate can also be derived from plants.)

Vegan Outreach is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the suffering of farmed animals by promoting informed, ethical eating. All donations are tax-deductible. Vegan Outreach POB 30865, Tucson, AZ 85751-0865