Enewsletter
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Enewsletter • June 3, 2009 | ||||||||
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Notes from Vegan OutreachOffice Closure
And if you are in the Midwest, be sure to note that Anne Green and Matt Ball will be speaking in Chicago on June 7, while Jack Norris (right) will be at Their Lives, Our Voices in Minneapolis, June 12–14.
Vote for the Most Effective Campaign!In conjunction with AR2009 (where Jack Norris and Jon Camp will be speaking and tabling), FARM is running a poll of the most effective animal advocacy campaign. No registration is needed, and the winning campaign will receive very useful exposure. Please vote today!
Product of the Week
Send your product of the week to product (at) veganoutreach (dot) org; previous entries here.
Notes from All OverLightning Round
Notes from Our MembersWritten to Eileen Botti: While leafleting at
a concert tonight,
I met a young woman who goes to
Bridgewater State College. She excitedly
told me that she already got an
Even If You Like Meat at
school and that she doesn’t eat
meat anymore. Good work! Written by an Australian leafleter to an interested activist: I believe very much
that Vegan Outreach’s
Adopt
a College is the most effective
form of animal rights activity in
terms of numbers of animals saved
and in terms of creating lasting
changes to society. Leafleting has
taken off at Melbourne University,
and is done on a weekly basis by
the Cage-Free Campus Society. So
friends and I have moved on to Royal
Melbourne Institute of Technology.
This is the most effective animal
rights advocacy that can be done,
and I am happy to work with you.
(I must have given out many 1000s
of leaflets by now, but I’m no Joe
Espinosa!) On Tuesday,
I left Steger at 2am and was in
action at Ohio State by 9:20am Ohio
time. I heard from 14 vegetarians
and three vegans. There was good
reception the next day at Ohio University,
where I heard from 13 vegetarians
and two vegans. Finally, I spent
my last vacation day until next
semester at the University of Wisconsin
at Madison, where I heard from 16
vegetarians and five vegans. For
these three days, I reached just
under 3,000 students with the information
they need to reduce animal suffering. At Dartmouth,
a student on a bike took an Even
If You Like Meat, pulled over,
and proceeded to read it for the
next five minutes. It was good to see
so many students consider the
plight of these animals. Within the first five
minutes at Contra
Costa College, a security guard
asked, “Is that about animal cruelty?”
I replied that yes it was and asked
if he would like one. He said he
still had his from my last visit
a few months ago. I then met a woman
whose husband is a butcher and two
daughters are vegetarians. We had
a chuckle at how things work out
in life. She came back later in
the day to tell me how affected
she was by the leaflet and we talked
about animals and our culture’s
relationship with them. Another
woman from the culinary department
took a few extra leaflets for her
colleagues as well as a Guide
for herself. She thanked me for
distributing this information to
others.
Your argument
on getting through
to meat eaters finally got through
to me! I have always focused more
on not offending people than on
stopping animals from suffering.
But you’re right [to focus on the
animals]. It makes sense because
everyone I know who is vegan or
even vegetarian, including myself,
did so because they saw something
that shocked them about the way
animals were treated. All the other
reasoning came later. When I first
went vegetarian, health was the
excuse I gave my mom to reassure
her it wasn’t a terrible idea. But
when it all comes down to it, unless
you’re a total critically thinking
health nut or environmentalist (and,
really, who is these days?), the
only compelling reason to go vegan
is the immense suffering involved
in not doing so. I never would have
figured this out without someone
spelling it out for me like you
did. I just wanted to say thank
you because, obviously, I need to
dedicate my life to this. Someone’s
gotta step up to the plate. Since Cal Poly Pomona
has been so heavily leafleted in
past semesters, I decided to give
out Compassionate Choices
today—something they haven’t
seen before. It went very well,
meeting lots of veggies and interested
people as always. When someone took
it and said, “Save the chickens!”
I looked at the birds on the front
cover and thought about Prop 2 here
in California and how chickens actually
matter now. A few years back, I
remember protesting a KFC and so
many people thought we were nuts,
standing up for chickens of all things,
barely a step up from the cockroach
in their minds. Now chickens matter.
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The
Vegan Outreach office will be closed
June 5–14. Any 
Leila: 
