Notes
from Vegan Outreach
Preliminary Spring Report
 With
numbers still trickling in, as of
May 25, Adopt
a College volunteers have handed
335,184
booklets directly to students during
the Spring semester.
At right, Chris Roberts leaflets
at CUNY, Baruch; photo by Jenna
Calabrese.
Jon Camp reached his goal of 50,000
flyers for the semester; Victor
Tsou handed out 46,489 flyers; Jenna
Calabrese hit 107 different schools.
At 30,601, full-time teacher (and
husband and father) Stewart Solomon
has broken his previous semester
record of 29,410!
Congratulations to everyone who
took part, and thanks to all those
who contributed to make this happen!
Vegan Dan's Race Approaches!
Dan Kuzma is finishing up preparations
for the Mohican
Trail 100 Mile Race, June 16-17.
He says: "For this occasion,
I will dedicate each mile that I
run to ending animal suffering.
I need sponsors to help me achieve
this goal! You can help by donating
a quarter, fifty cents, or dollar
per mile that I run to print more
Vegan Outreach booklets."
You can learn more, help promote
his run, and/or make a sponsorship
pledge here.
Products of the Week
 Via
Vegan.com,
Erik Marcus found the Don
Lee Veggie Patties
in the refrigerated section at his
local Costco, and says it is the
best veggie burger he's ever had.
McFarland
Designs has chosen
Vegan Outreach as the charity to
receive 5% of sales for the month
of June.
Send your nominees for Product
of the Week to product
(at) veganoutreach (dot) org;
previous products can be found here.
Notes from All
Over
From the Telegraph
(UK); excerpt: "It would help
tackle the problem of climate change
if people ate less meat, according
to a Government agency. Adopting
a vegan diet dramatically reduces
one person's impact on the environment."
The Daily Mail has a different
take: "The
secret plans to turn us all vegetarian."
From Arkangel;
excerpt: "Fewer chickens, turkeys
and pigs are being killed for meat
in the UK and the drop is significant
according to the government’s latest
agricultural figures produced by
Defra. ... According to Mintel (2006),
5-6 per cent of the population is
now vegetarian and the number is
rising. The number of vegans has
increased ten fold in the last 10
years, up to a million."
Via DawnWatch.com,
"Over Memorial Day Weekend,
the Chicago Tribune ran
a wonderful story on the cover of
its magazine section, Sunday May
27, headed, 'Ruffling
Feathers; Once Viewed
as Crazies, Animal Rights Activists
Say Their Message is Starting to
Get Through.'"
"New York Newsday's
Monday, May 29 article by Joseph
Dionisio is headed, 'GO
FAUX for low-cal, low-fat
eating; Meatless 'meats' are increasingly
going mainstream.'"
Why All This Matters
A new
Mercy For Animals undercover investigation
takes you behind the closed doors
of one of the country's largest
poultry slaughterhouses -- House
of Raeford Farms, Inc. in Raeford,
North Carolina. In January and February
of 2007, an MFA investigator worked
in the "live-hang" area
of the plant (where live birds are
snapped into shackles on the slaughter
line), secretly filming egregious
acts of animal cruelty with a hidden
camera. Shocking abuses he witnessed
include:
- Turkeys with broken wings and
legs, bloody open wounds, tumors
and other untreated injuries being
slaughtered for human consumption
- A worker violently punching
live, shackled turkeys for "fun"
- Employees forcefully shoving
their hands into the cloacae (vaginal
cavities) of live chickens
- Turkeys and chickens being
thrown across the facility and
up into the air
- Workers ripping the heads off
live turkeys
- Birds being crushed to death
under the wheels of trucks
- Conscious turkeys having their
throats slit
You can learn more and see the
truly appalling video at this
website.
Also via DawnWatch,
Gourmet is running "Investigative
Report: A Chicken's Life"
in their June edition. Excerpt:
"[C]chickens balloon in weight
so fast that their baby skeletons
can't support it well: among other
problems their tendons slip and
their leg bones twist, making a
large proportion of commercial broilers
partially or completely lame."
"Worst of all, researchers
have found that some birds don't
get zapped enough by the electric
bath to be rendered unconscious,
so they are awake as the blade cuts
their throat. Others twist and wriggle
so much that they miss the blade
altogether, and they get poached
alive instead. The chicken council
allows a rate of up to 2 percent
for such incidents -- which means
that up to 180 million chickens
each year suffer through a botched
death in the slaughterhouse."
 Feedback
from Our Members
I recently gave a
short presentation
to ~32 students at the Alexander
Montessori School. I gave 32 Try
Vegetarian leaflets and showed
the video My Friends on the
Farm. But the real news is
that I was joined by Mr. Clucky
and his friend Mark Buckley. Mark
rescued Mr. Clucky, who is believed
to be a discarded male chick. He
is very attached to Mark but he
LOVES people, especially children.
-Linda Bower, Miami,
FL, 5/31/07
Leafleting at the "Last
Thursday" event
in the Alberta Arts district, we
heard a lot of great feedback, including:
- A girl took an Even If,
and then exclaimed to the guy
she was with, "See! This
is why I'm vegetarian! You have
to read this! You have to read
this!"
- A girl said no when I offered
her a pamphlet and then a split
second later said, "Oh wait!
Yes! Can I get three of these?"
- A girl (to whom I had given
a pamphlet to a earlier) came
up and said, "That is a really
good brochure. I really like how
it's worded." She thanked
me multiple times for distributing
them.
- A guy came up and asked to
see what I was handing out. He
stood there for a few minutes
looking through the pamphlet and
said, "This is really heavy
stuff. This is awful."
- A guy ran over to me and said,
"Can I get another one? I
just handed the copy you gave
me to a friend."
- An older (pretty conservative-looking)
man approached me and asked for
a brochure. He said, "Isn't
it sick how chickens are treated?
Thanks for giving me this."
- "I'll make sure that this
ends up on our kitchen table tomorrow."
- "I need to think more about
what I eat."
- "I'm already veg, but I'll
give this to someone else."
-Jessica Dadds, Portland,
OR, 6/1/07
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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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