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Enewsletter • January 11, 2012 | |||||||||||||||
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Notes from Vegan Outreach
Jon Camp on Adopt a College Fall 2011This past semester, we handed out 879,580 booklets at 914 schools. Wow! The previous record for booklets in a semester was 690,374, and the previous record for schools visited was 843. When we first started AAC (fall of ’03), we distributed 22,217 at 63 schools. Nikki Benoit led the employees this semester with 78,468 booklets. On the volunteer front, Mara Collopy leafleted an amazing 32,999 booklets at 63 schools, followed by Joe Espinosa’s 29,587 and Casey Constable’s 23,264. Unbelievable! The Humane League took first place for groups with 77,842 booklets handed out. A total of 76 individuals and groups handed out more than 1,000 booklets this semester! There are only two reasons for the success of this work: 1) financial supporters who ensure that booklets are printed, and 2) leafleters, who get the booklets into the students’ hands. It’s a gorgeous alley-oop. The supporters lob the ball up and we, the leafleters, slam it home. It’s a team effort with so many of you playing such an important role. As all of you know, it’s easy to take the route of comfort and indifference, but that is not the option that any of you have chosen. You continue to use so much of your money, time, talents, and energy (in all weather extremes) to ensure a brighter future for animals. I hope that all of you take a moment to reflect on all the good that you have done thus far and how the world is truly better off because of your efforts.
Attn: PA, NJ, and NY: You Can Help Jon!
Jon Camp, VO’s Director of Outreach, will be spending March and April on the road, doing college outreach. He’ll be in PA, NJ, and upstate NY. To make this tour as cost-efficient as possible, he, America’s Most Considerate Houseguest, is in need of 1 to 3 nights of housing all throughout NJ, throughout PA (except for Philadelphia), and in upstate NY. Additionally, he’d like your leafleting help when he travels through your city and would love to give his talk on effective advocacy to your local group. If you can help out with any of this, please email jon(at)veganoutreach(dot)org. Thank you!
From “Your Daily Dose of Vegan Outreach!” & Jack Norris RD Blogs
Notes from Our Members
Nine
of us reached 2,440 more people
at Phoenix’s Art Walk! Several people said,
“Your booklets already made me veg!”
Another couple wanted to start leafleting with
us. Michael joined us for the first time. He
recently went veg after having to re-roof a
factory farm for work. He said the things he
saw were so traumatic he had to take the rest
of the day off and instantly went veg. Theo
and I set records at both Sacramento
City College and Franklin High School – nearly
2,500 students reached today. I had so many
conversations at SCC, insanity. We’ve
made such progress at this school in the last
four years. I remember whole days of never meeting
even one vegetarian; today we met close to 40
vegetarians / vegans and even more on their way
towards it. The
University of Mississippi was
one of the most positive leafleting experiences
I’ve ever had! The response was wonderful, and
I met so many people who were genuinely interested
in our message. I even got invited to go speak
to a food policy class, so I jumped on the opportunity
and had an amazing conversation with the students.
Students were so engaged that I ended up speaking
for more than twice my allotted time in order
to answer all the questions. The professor is
really interested in Vegan Outreach, even though
he comes from a family who raises cows for beef.
I had such great feedback, and when I left,
everyone was profusely thanking me for coming
to their class and telling me how much they
loved hearing about these issues. Seriously,
it was one of the most productive, proactive
conversations I have ever had. At
Foreman High School, I had a chat
with one of the deans of the school, who also
happened to head an “animal club.”
She took booklets to distribute to the club
and in class. A most worthwhile morning!
Can you
guess the topic I chose for my
persuasive speech? It went really well, talked
for about six minutes about animal cruelty on
factory farms. I held my kitchen knife up and
said if you wouldn't take this knife and slice
the throat of a cat or dog then ask yourself,
why do it to 27 chickens a year when there are
vegetarian versions that are just as good, protein-packed
(earlier there was a bodybuilding classmate
telling us to eat more chicken), and
available at virtually every grocery store?
I’ve already had one-on-one conversations with
5 of the 19 other people that were in class
yesterday, so of the 14 other people in class,
all but two eagerly took a Guide
and VegPhoenix restaurant guide! About a month
ago I did my informative speech on factory farming,
and it turns out my professor has been vegetarian
since! Lisa and
I had an amazing day at Queensborough
Community College, where we handed out 1,567 booklets
(including 17 Guides). Spoke with many
interested students, including three specifically
interested in going vegan, and three others
interested in helping leaflet. Very high
reception rate at Indiana University
at South Bend. An older student said getting
a booklet from me last year moved him to stop
eating meat. Whoa!
Unexpected delights at Cornerstone
University and Calvin College! Hanna happily
mentioned going vegan after getting a booklet
last year from me. One student asked: “Are
you from Vegan Outreach too?” and gave
me a big hug. He had also hugged and thanked
Mara earlier. At Calvin, I was stopped by an
assistant pastor; we talked for maybe 20 minutes.
He said a few people were disturbed by the pictures,
so I had to whip out the instant classic, “If
it’s not good enough for your eyes, why is it
good enough for your stomach?” He surprised
me and asked for booklets for his reading group.
Pretty
cold day at Idaho State. One woman
called me a blessing in disguise, as she has
been thinking about going vegetarian. I gave
her a Guide and the address of the
local natural food store, as well as the name
and address of a local diner with a good veggie
burger. A young ecology student told me he has
been thinking about his diet’s impact on the
planet but that he loves steak; so I encouraged
him to try being vegan except for steak, which
he said he’d try. I also spoke with two students
who declared that they were going to try Meatless
Mondays and skipped off to see what the dining
hall had coming up. So cool! Northeastern
Illinois University was awesome! The
students were very receptive, hardly any negative
comments, and lots of good conversations. I
talked to one guy who used to be vegetarian
who said he wanted to get back into it since
his mom is more veg-friendly now. Danyelle had
a good conversation with a professor, and one
professor yelled back to me while walking away:
“Thank you, I’m about to lecture on this!”
I also connected with two different people from
the campus radio station who both expressed
interest in interviewing me, so that was great.
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