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Notes from Vegan Outreach
 excerpt:
Don't dwell on the people you know
who won't change. Instead, go out
and leaflet, or sponsor a leafleter,
at a college!
By convincing just a few people
every semester, you will be preventing
the suffering of thousands
of animals over their lifetimes.
You will be creating a pocket of
change that will likely extend out
from those people. As the numbers
grow, people who have given up eating
animals will be much more likely
to be sympathetic towards other
animal issues, and this will increase
political pressure in favor of animal
liberation.
At right, Ellen
Green spends her day off leafleting
the Pitt Panthers; photo by Matt
Ball.
Products of the Week
Christy LaRose enthuses: "Sweet
and Sara, Mexican Chocolate
Marshmallows! I tried them at AR2006
and they are incredible! The perfect
sweet, chocolaty snack after dinner."
Beth Brettell nominates Fantastic
Foods World Soups:
"While they are all delicious,
my favorite, hands down, is the
Vegetarian Chicken Noodle. It tastes
just like how my Mom would make
her chicken soup when I was a kid.
And its vegan and super yummy! I
brought some of their soups when
I went camping this summer and even
my meat-eater friends liked them."
Send your nominees for Product
of the Week to product
(at) veganoutreach.org; previous
products can be found here.
Notes from All
Over
Andy Rooney Sees the Future
On 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney
had this to say:
"I often pass a farm with
cows grazing in the field and I
think to myself how terrible it
is that human beings grow other
animals just to kill them and eat
them. Most of us think of vegetarians
as nuts and I'm not a vegetarian
but I wouldn't be surprised if we
came to a time in 50 or 100 years
when civilized people everywhere
refused to eat animals. I could
be one of them. Of course, I'd be
pretty old by then."
Watch
the video here, or
read
the transcript here.
Pork Industry Condemned / Ben
& Jerry's Promise Change
Both via DawnWatch.com:
The Saturday, September 23, New
York Times editorial
(the paper's official editorial
opinion) headed "The Ultimate
Agricultural Efficiency" opens:
"Any American history of pork
-- the meat, that is -- shows a
steady concentration of more and
more hogs in the hands of fewer
and fewer producers. That is what
modern agricultural “efficiency”
looks like. It’s good for the bottom
line of the big industrial players,
but bad for farmers, hogs, the environment
and, ultimately, consumers. That
history took another step in the
wrong direction when Smithfield
Foods -- the biggest pork packer
-- agreed to buy the second biggest
pork packer, Premium Standard Farms."
Also, Ben & Jerry's has committed
itself to abandoning its current
egg supplier and phasing in the
use of eggs that come from hens
housed under higher welfare standards.
For more, see here.
Notes from Our
Members
I received an
Even If You Like Meat at
the Now and Zen concert in San Francisco.
It made me physically ill and I
would really like to stop eating
meat. I realized that it is quite
easy to stop.
-LW, Oakland, CA, 9/22/06
On Saturday, my
boyfriend and I were in Boston,
when a protest rally for vegans
came through and handed me one of
your pamphlets. It made me cry,
and since then, I haven't touched
meat, and also convinced 3 other
people to follow with me.
-AG, 10/2/06
DeAnza College is one
of my favorite schools
to leaflet, and Randy Sandberg and
I handed out 1210 EIs and
5 GCFEs today. I had several
good conversations with students.
The best part of the day was when
one girl came up to me to ask some
questions about the booklet. She
said she was horrified by what she'd
read, and she didn't see how she
could continue to eat meat. I gave
her a GCFE and told her
about how I went vegetarian/vegan,
and suggested that she take it at
her own pace, that what was really
important was making a lasting change
to help animals. She said she was
going to check out the VO website
and read more on the topic. I also
met another student who said that
she'd like to join me in leafleting
DeAnza. We exchanged email addresses,
and hopefully we'll get another
new leafleter out of the day!
 -Suzanne
Haws, 9/27/06
At right, Heather Leughmyer
leaflets at Ball State; photo by
Joe Espinosa.
The best part of my
two-school day occurred
at Johnson and Wales, when a campus
maintenance employee happened to
pick up a discarded EI
before I had a chance to get it
myself. She glanced at the cover,
decided not to throw it into her
trash barrel, and paused to read
it. As another maintenance employee
approached, she beckoned her over
and the two of them pored over the
booklet together. They were both
loudly discussing the brochure,
and the first maintenance employee
ended up taking it with her instead
of throwing it away.
My favorite
exchange of the week, though, was
yesterday at the University of Rhode
Island:
Jenna: Brochure
against animal cruelty?
Student
A: Sure.
Student
B: No, thanks. I'm already against
animal cruelty.
Jenna: Are
you vegetarian?
Student
B: (sheepishly) Um ... no....
Student
A: (laughing) You should probably
take one, dude. Maybe you'll learn
something.
Student
B: (takes a brochure, both students
walk away reading their EI)
-Jenna Calabrese, 9/26/06
Over the course of
the summer farmers
market season, VeganMania
Bakery distributed your Why
Vegan? pamphlets to great success.
The worst responses I'd get were
people opening it up to the middle
and seeing the gruesome pictures
and wanting to put the pamphlet
down, but I'd just say, "I
know it's awful to look at, but
it does have a happy ending when
you choose to eat some vegan food
instead!" Most people were
happy to have the information and
it certainly sparked a lot of good
conversations. So, thanks for producing
that little gem.
-CT, Vancouver, 9/25/06
At Cal State Los Angeles
today, a lady told
me that she and her daughter are
now vegan after reading EI last
semester.
-Stewart Solomon, 9/25/06
You can see previous
issues of Vegan Outreach's e-newsletter
here.
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Vegan Outreach
P.O. Box 38492
Pittsburgh, PA 15238
VO is a 501(c)(3) non-profit
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are tax-deductible. |
