Enewsletter
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Enewsletter • July 8, 2009 | ||||||
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Notes from Vegan OutreachLink of the Week: How Vegan?Excerpt: "For every person we convince that veganism is overly demanding by obsessing with an ever-increasing list of ingredients, we do worse than nothing: we turn someone away who could have made a real difference for animals if they hadn’t met us! Currently the vast majority of people in our society have no problem eating the actual leg of a chicken. It is not surprising that many people dismiss vegans as unreasonable and irrational when our example includes interrogating waiters, not eating veggie burgers cooked on the same grill with meat, not taking photographs or using medicines, etc." Read full article.
Resources of the WeekTwo web sites: VegVine and VegGuide. Send your product of the week to product (at) veganoutreach (dot) org; previous entries here.
Notes from All OverLightning Round
Notes from Our Members
I’m
ordering booklets after reading
your amazing Handbook.
This book has completely changed my life. I
can't wait to hand them out. Both
days at Evanston Custer Fair were
very busy, with a ton of kids in their teens
and twenties. Virtually no one seemed to have
seen these brochures before. It was very gratifying
to watch so many of these kids read the booklets
right on the spot. I had about 20 people say
they were veg*ns, others were just starting
out, hungry for information. Jon Camp’s
charisma (and also his VO
T-shirt) prompted two Texan students to
approach him and ask about getting involved. Leafleting at the University of
Illinois, Chicago, one young woman
told her friend, "You have to take one
of those! It’s what turned me into a vegetarian!"
I asked her when that was and she responded,
"Two years ago," which means she got
it from Joe Espinosa (who reached over 30,000
students this past semester).
At Purdue
University, I leafleted a lot
of high school kids there for a Future Farmers
of America convention. I pointed out the citations
from animal agriculture journals and textbooks
so they would know the quotations are from professors
of animal agriculture, acknowledging the industry’s
standard treatment of animals. I myself have
a history of spending time working on my uncle’s
dairy farm as a child, and I entered the University
of Illinois in 1989 in the College of Agriculture,
so I do suspect that like me, some of these
young people who have been lied to and taught
to lie to hide the ugly truth of animal agriculture
can get progressively more honest with themselves.
My task was to help move that process along
for all that I encountered. At Truman College,
one woman told me she has been cutting back
on meat for health reasons and mostly eats fish
and chicken. I told her about how chickens are
treated and she was horrified. We talked about
the Golden Rule and the prevalence of violence
in society and she seemed to make the connection
with how animals are treated. She said she is
going to give up chicken and work on going vegetarian. It was an awesome day of
leafleting at this huge kickoff to the summer
festival season in Cleveland. Three new leafleters
joined me this time. They were a little nervous
starting out but then were surprised at how
easy it was and said they’d for sure be leafleting
again! We encountered LOTS of vegetarians and
quite a few vegans too. Really positive response
at this event.
I
went to my alma mater, UNAM (National
Autonomous University of Mexico), and gave out
206 booklets in a heartbeat. Reception was very
close to perfect. Met a handful of enthusiastic
vegetarians, and a student gave me her information
so she can join me at leafleting next time I
come. My mom, who works at UNAM, tagged along
and asked the students to spread the word after
reading the booklet. Most of them said they
would. I went back later and handed out hundreds
more.
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