Enewsletter

This issue sponsored by Simple Treats.

News from Vegan Outreach

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Several people have commented that Vegan Outreach is always "begging" for money. Out of necessity, a major function of Vegan Outreach is to raise money so we can provide local activists with effective literature for promoting vegetarianism. For this, we are dependent on your contributions; Vegan Outreach has no endowment. Your donations go towards printing and distributing more booklets, so more people can learn about vegetarianism and compassionate living. We have many activists who hand out thousands of brochures every week, so it is important that Vegan Outreach be able to print and send them copies of Why Vegan, Try Vegetarian, and Even If You Like Meat.

(At right, Ellen Green leaflets at the University of Pittsburgh.)

Unlike many campaigns or rescues with a fixed duration and/or endpoint, the work of Vegan Outreach takes advantage of the wonders of compound interest. Assume, for example, that your donation this week leads to five new vegetarians next week. That leads to an estimated 175 birds and mammals saved from a life of terrible cruelty and suffering in 2005, and 175 more in 2006, and 175 in 2007, etc. -- thousands of animals over these people's lifetimes! And this ignores the influence these vegetarians will have on others in the years and decades to come!

Booklets in hand are worth more than money in the bank!

Truly, your support of Vegan Outreach is the gift that keeps on giving, working every year to make a better, more compassionate world. Thanks to everyone who has helped make 2004 a record year -- over 600,000 booklets distributed already! For everyone else, please consider the work of Vegan Outreach when making your holiday donations (tax deductible!). You can contribute with a credit card securely on-line, or send a check to:

Vegan Outreach | P.O. Box 38492 | Pittsburgh, PA 15238-8492

We'll continue to work as hard as possible to make your donation go as far as possible. Thanks!

AAC Commentary

Linda Bower reports:

While handing out copies of Try Vegetarian at Miami-Dade College North Campus, a Haitian lady stopped me and said, "There you are! Give me some extras for friends." She said I gave her one before, and her husband has insisted that no meat enter the house ever since she showed it to him. She seemed very excited.

One girl in the library said that she had received one from me before, and that she and another girl then decided to give a speech in a class about vegetarian diets. She said that some students complained, and some actually got up and walked out of the class. I gave her a list of websites because she plans to do another speech on the same topic Monday!

Jack Norris comments:

This is one of the big reasons AAC can make a huge difference in society. When you go out and leaflet, especially a college, you are not just impacting the people you leaflet to, but also impacting their friends and classmates whom they show the brochure to, etc.

Before I started leafleting colleges, I had an unconscious idea that vegetarianism was somehow spreading on its own. The truth is that we have to make it happen -- and we can make it happen by regularly getting out there in our communities and starting more pockets of change which will then grow exponentially over time. So great job to everyone -- I am daily touched by everyone's dedication to helping animals!

Question of the Week: Are Vegans Closed-Minded Hypocrites?

Holiday Shopping for the Animals!

Just about anything you can buy, you can buy on-line via one of Vegan Outreach's affiliates. Buying via the links on this page and mentioning Vegan Outreach will lead to the distribution of more copies of Why Vegan, Try Vegetarian, and Even If You Like Meat -- what a deal! Everything you can imagine is available via our Greater Good store!

Vegan Outreach Upcoming Schedule

The Vegan Outreach office will be closed December 21 - January 4. So please -- look over your calendar for the next few months, and order what you will need.

Matt Ball, along with Ellen and Anne Green, will be speaking in Phoenix, AZ, on December 29. Details here.

Notes from All Over

Ani DiFranco's Upcoming Tour

Jon Camp writes: "Tonite, I gave out 98 Why Vegans and 13 Try Vegetarians in about an hour at the Ani DiFranco show in Red Bank, NJ. It was a Sunday night show, and this is a small town/ theatre, so if she comes to your town, I'm sure you'll be able to pass out more. Mostly all relatively young women, and a good percentage seemed really interested in this issue. I think this is a good use of time." See her site for dates and locations.

Holiday Recipes

Related to this, Jon Camp had this letter published in the Chicago Tribune:

While it is true that some vegetarian dinners focus on mere side dishes, compassionate eating is by no means confined to that option. With meat analogs now dotting supermarket aisles, eating vegetarian doesn't have to mean denying one's favorite tastes but, rather, substituting with the cruelty-free versions of those tastes.

This year I celebrated my ninth consecutive vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner and ended the night unquestionably satiated. The food rivaled anything I had eaten in my many years of eating meat and, best of all, I didn't contribute to the misery that animals endure on today's factory farms and in slaughterhouses.

In a world rife with violence, fear and oppression, I was thankful to enjoy a dinner that didn't contribute to such.

From Our Members

There is a Martin Luther King, Jr. quote that I really like, and have revisited after being told by some local activists that leafleting is too passive, that abolitionists used violence, etc.:

Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and enobles who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

I'm not an absolute pacifist, but I think the idea of a "sword that heals" relates to leafleting and veg advocacy in the sense that we should think of this work as a sword (active, aggressive without causing burnout), but also something that doesn't leave the recipient permanently scarred and embittered. Being kind and using humor to get this message across is the "that heals" part. So, a sense of urgency with smarts and friendliness is a winning combination, in my humble opinion.
-Jon Camp, 12/3/04

You have produced the most informative and influential piece of literature. Your Why Vegan pamphlets have assisted me and my friends many times in our outreach to our peers. We have found that setting up booths at musical shows has proven to be very effective and feel that you have the best material for our ventures.
-DW, San Antonio, TX, 12/3/04

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