Enewsletter

One MEEEEEEELION Booklets

Last week it happened:

Vegan Outreach has passed 1,000,000 booklets for 2006!

For a while now, I've tried to figure out some way to express the magnitude of this achievement, and yet I've failed to come up with anything adequate.

I know we face a huge task ahead of us -- literally to change the world at a fundamental level -- but from my perspective, starting when I met my vegetarian roommate freshman year 20 years ago, the speed and breadth of the journey to date has been truly remarkable.

Back then, very little animal advocacy movement in the U.S. was focused on farm animals. There wasn't even a color brochure for the purpose of spreading vegetarianism (see "VO's Influences and History").

Eleven years ago, we were still hand-collating, stapling, and folding a batch of 10,000 black and white booklets. It took Vegan Outreach more than six years (from when we started counting in 1994 until mid-2000) to distribute the first million booklets.

Now there are single days when activists hand out 7, 8, and even 9,000 booklets. With 2 months left in the year, we have sent out over a million booklets (2005's total was 863,604; 2004's was 620,542). Adopt a College activists have already given brochures directly to over 200,000 students in the Fall term!

Overall distribution has now passed 5,000,000 brochures!

One thing hasn't changed, though. Back then, Vegan Outreach was dependent on donations from a small group of thoughtful donors who believed in honest, person-to-person grassroots education.

This is still the case. We have no high-profile animals or individual cases of cruelty to highlight, no prospect for any immediate "victory." So we are extremely grateful to the relative handful of people who believe in the reasoning behind Vegan Outreach, who are out there doing the day-to-day outreach, and who are willing to donate to print and distribute ever more booklets.

We've always said that your donations lead to more booklets reaching more new people, and this year proves it yet again!

Again, I know how very far we have to go. But as I look back 20 years, it is truly amazing how far we've come, in terms of emphasis, focus, tactics, numbers, recognition, awareness, and options.

Progress will continue to be uneven, and our efforts will be filled with frustrations, but there is no doubt that we are bending the arc of history towards justice.

Congratulations and thanks to everyone!

-Matt Ball

From the top: Jenna Calabrese, Jon Camp, Victor Tsou, Jack Norris.

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