Enewsletter

Notes from Vegan Outreach

100,000,000

Since August 1, 2003, Adopt a College activists have handed Vegan Outreach booklets directly to 2,317,448 students at 1,111 schools. Based on our theoretical estimates (details), these efforts have led to over 57,000 new vegetarians, who, over the next 50 years, will spare more than 100,000,000 chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows, and lambs from the horrors of factory farms.

This incredible accomplishment is the result of a wonderful -- and growing! -- team of dedicated activists and donors. Everyone who has contributed should be incredibly proud to be a part of this powerful campaign. Thanks so much for your commitment to creating fundamental, lasting change. All of us can make this school year the best yet for the animals!

Activist Profile: Eric Paul

This week's profile is Eric Paul, Vegan Outreach's Sacramento-based leafleter, who recently handed out over 2,500 booklets at Sacramento State. Here are some excerpts:

How long have you been involved in animal rights and how did you get interested?
I went veg when I was 13, originally to annoy my Dad. But as I learned more and more about speciesism and factory farming, it became more of a passion -- this overwhelming feeling that I needed to do something took me over. At first, I had no idea what I could do! Then I was given an Even If You Like Meat by our Mr. Grupe, and here I am.

What made you decide to start leafleting?
What really made me want to get involved with Vegan Outreach was when I went on their web page and read their history. I really like how they stress education over fanaticism. The word "counterproductive" always pops up in my head when I see other groups making vegans / veggies look like crazy people!

What was your most positive leafleting experience and why?
I can't really say I have a favorite moment, but I can say this: when someone comes up to me at a school I have already leafleted and tells me about how they went veggie/ vegan because of our booklets, it just makes my day.

Read the entire profile here!

Advertise Compassion While Shopping

Thanks to Becky's generosity, Vegan Outreach now has cotton tote bags for sale. You can order them from our Catalog.

Product of the Week

Eric: "Vegan American soy slices by Galaxy Foods -- kinda tastes like Kraft cheese."

Notes from All Over

Lightning Round

• Joe Espinosa joins Erik Marcus for podcast
• Moving Beyond the Rhetoric of Apology
• Student's Animal Guardian Alliance -- helping high school students be part of a larger animal advocacy community.
• Better to know: Two-Egg Diet Cracks Cholesterol Issue

Notes from Our Members

I have been vegetarian for a year as of this November, and recently ordered some of your leaflets. I handed them out all over my high school, and, for only being 15, I had a lot of positive responses. There were three teachers who hung posters in their room about becoming vegetarian and helping animals. All the jokes were ignored, all the questions were answered, and the best part is I got three people to go vegetarian! I even got a teacher to abandon fur and leather always and go vegan for a week!
-CH, 8/27/08

At the Warped tour, I got your booklet. After reading it, I couldn't bear to eat meat anymore.
-CR, Los Banos, CA, 8/23/08

Will Fisher leaflets at SUNY New Paltz.

Excerpts of an email sent to Jodi Chemes:
One year ago you handed me the Even If You Like Meat -- this is my one year "anniversary" for being a vegetarian. I am SO GLAD I came across you, and that you do what you do. Since having my eyes opened to how animals are treated, I realize that I have it made! My life is not hard -- their lives are! I honestly feel that a HUGE thing to do is make others aware, like you did for me. I want you to know that you have changed my life! And hopefully I will change lives in the same way.
-CF, 8/28/08

From a member of the military in Iraq, confirming she received her order of booklets:
Know that halfway around the world, there is an Army base with one dedicated vegetarian letting people know that Iraqis aren't the only beings on earth greatly mistreated.
-JN, 8/30/08

I had good interactions at the Portland City Fest. A girl took a pamphlet and screamed after looking at the cover, "Are they killing the animals?" I explained what was happening and she immediately said, "I'm going vegetarian right now." Her three younger siblings all grabbed a pamphlet and started looking through them, asking me questions, expressing disgust by what they saw. Their parents approached us a minute or two later and the girl held up the pamphlet to her mother and said, "Mom, this is animal cruelty." I gave the girl a Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating. Later, a man stopped and said he had seen the pamphlet before. He looked through it and said, "It's awful what we do to sentient beings...." We talked for a while and I gave him a GCFE. He said he was interested in getting copies for his conscious living center (which I'll deliver). He also said he was interested in having someone give a presentation on vegetarianism.
-Jessica Dadds, 8/26/08

I received your pamphlet at Portland City Fest and am now a newly made veggie. Your organization is awesome -- keep up the good work.
-WY, 8/26/08

Leah Wagoner leaflets in Kansas City.

At Cal State Northridge, a girl took an Even If and walked back past me 20 minutes later, reading the leaflet and saying into her cell phone: "This is horrible, really really awful. I never really liked meat, but now I'm a vegetarian."
-Stewart Solomon, 8/26/08

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