Enewsletter

Notes from Vegan Outreach

Please Help Jon Camp’s Spring Tour

Starting in late February, Jon Camp, VO’s Director of Outreach, will embark on a ten-week college outreach tour through the American South. He has found housing for most of his tour, but still needs a place to stay in or near the following:

• WV: Morgantown, Fairmont, and Huntington
• KY: Morehead, Richmond, Bowling Green, Murray, and Lexington
• TN: Chattanooga and Martin
• TX: Killeen, San Angelo, and Canyon
• AZ: Flagstaff
• OK: Norman, Stillwater, and Edmond

If you’d be willing to house America’s Most Courteous Houseguest, please contact Jon (at) VeganOutreach (dot) org.

Also, if you’d like to leaflet with Jon, or if you’d like him to give his talk on advocacy to your local group, please contact him. Thanks so much!

From “Your Daily Dose of Vegan Outreach!” & Jack Norris RD Blogs

• Another Glimpse of the Future
• Vegan Diets Becoming More Popular, More Mainstream
• Interesting, but Ultimately Irrelevant
• An Introvert’s View of Leafleting

Product of the Week

Anne Marie: “I recommend Twin Oaks products, especially the Extra-Chewy Chorizo Vegetarian Sausage. The sausage comes in an easy-to-slice tube, and is good sautéed with squash and onions, served over rice with generous amounts of sriracha hot sauce. I make this for non-vegans with rave reviews.” (At the VO office, we do the same thing with Tofurky’s Italian sausage or Gimme Lean sausage.)

Please submit your product of the week via this page; previous entries here.

Notes from All Over

Lightning Round

• Another Top 10 for 2010: Vegan Goes Mainstream
• The Rise of Veganism
• How the Health Argument Fails Veganism
• Nearly Every American Thinks Their Diet Is Healthy
• Animal Consumption over Last Century
• Vegan.com:
  • Crafting an Animal Advocacy Message
  • How Daiya Cheese Was Born

Notes from Our Members

Nikki Benoit passes along this photo of another person who went veg because of a VO booklet (right) and her enthusiastic vegan friend at Pasadena City College.

Definitely more vegetarians from leafleting the First Friday Art Walk. For example, we met someone who said they went veg after reading the booklet. Also met a 15-year-old who went veg three months ago after talking with us at a demo – he has been loving being vegetarian ever since!
—John Oberg, 1/7/11

Jon Camp’s talk inspired a bunch of new people to come out leafleting today, setting a new record at UNC-Chapel Hill. It is really wonderful to see so much new interest in leafleting in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area!
—Loren Hart, 10/28/10

I am a freshman at Rutgers University. When I was walking out of class, I was handed one of your booklets. I had stopped eating red meat a couple of months ago. However, I continued to eat chicken until I saw the booklet’s information on how harshly chickens are treated as well. I am very grateful that I read this; now I have more than enough inspiration and motivation on becoming a full vegan. I want to help you raise awareness about how animals are treated.
—SG, 10/3/10

Hope Spring helps the animals at UC Irvine.

At the University of Idaho, I had two people tell me they wanted to go vegan. One of them said his vegan niece has talked to him about it before, but the booklet pushed him over the edge.
     I also talked to a girl whose parents own a dairy farm. Although I don’t think she will ever change her mind, I think it is good that she now sees animal rights activists in a positive light. She said she is against abusing animals but thought a lot of the stuff was taken out of context. But when I pointed to the gestation crates, battery cages, etc., she agreed those would be found on every farm.
     At Washington State, I heard one person say to her friend, “I got one of these here three years ago, and that’s why I stopped eating meat.” Talked to a few kids about what they could do to help. I overheard a group of kids discussing the leaflet as I walked by them. I think the leaflets spark a lot of conversations on the campuses we go to – numerous times, I have had kids come back to me later in the day saying their professor just discussed the booklet with them in class. Very cool!
—Phil Letten, 10/29/10

Was great to leaflet with Aleta and Kathryn at Wesleyan. One student was very angry and said that I should warn people about the pictures. I let her talk, then gently commented that unfortunately these animals endure this horror, and the only way to have people understand is to shock them with reality. I said that most people do not realize they are paying someone to do this when they consume animals. We talked more, and when she left, she said she agreed this work needed to be done, thanked me for being there, and encouraged me to continue!
—Karen James, 10/29/10

Good lunchtime leafleting at Arizona State. We overheard one student say, “Now I have to think about what I eat.” Another said her 14-year-old sister happened to see the booklet in her room and went vegetarian as a result.
—Jeff Boghosian, 10/28/10

Lana Smithson makes the animals’ case at Florida International University.

The leafleting at Schenectady Community College was very rewarding. I had a wonderful discussion with two students from Guyana who were really interested. One veg student came back asking about how to become an activist. A former vegan and activist bemoaned the treatment he got from his family and the expense of veganism. He got a Guide and was really excited at the prospect of cutting animal products back out of his life.
—Laura Hart, 10/29/10

Good day at Columbia University. A number of students returned to get extras for their friends and to request more info/ Guides. Also, a brand-new vegetarian food truck called VEGENATION pulled up and parked right in front of me – they serve falafel and dosas, modeled after a popular vegan food cart that is always parked at NYU. This created some good traffic and a receptive audience, as there was a great example of vegan food to point to right in front of me. Also met two vegans from Sweden who were astounded by the vegan restaurants in NYC, and told me that the Columbia cafeteria even has soy ice cream.
—Eileen Botti, 10/29/10

	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