By Victor Sjodin, Director of Outreach

We’ve got big plans to save a lot of animals this semester!

Vegan Outreach’s Outreach Coordinators have their vehicles packed—with thousands of leaflets and plenty of good vegan snacks—and are hitting the road to begin their spring semester leafleting tours.

Trailblazing Jamila Alfred will resume her tour of historically black colleges and universities in the Southeast. Yuri Mitzkewich will also be in the Southeast territory, but he’ll add many Texas schools to his spring tour—a first for him.

Steve Erlsten will be promoting peace on the plate all over California, southern Oregon, and Reno, NV. And rookie-no-more Sean Hennessy, has a big semester planned in Ohio and the surrounding areas.

Kimberly Moffatt will leaflet Virginia, Upstate New York, and Pennsylvania. Lori Stultz is also back in action—she’ll cover Colorado, Wyoming, and Arizona.

Rachel Shippee will be making sure that everyone in Michigan hears the vegan message. And Lana Smithson will cover Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and parts of the Boston, MA area.

We’re happy to announce a few new additions who will help leaflet in the remaining areas in the U.S. Longtime volunteer, John Deetjen, will cover the Upper Midwest, and Chris Shapard will be in Eastern Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Montana. The dedicated Cristina Myers Cuadrado will be leafleting in several states, including Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgina, and Florida.

Our stand out volunteers, Victor Flores and Karla Reyes, will visit schools in their home state of New Mexico, as well as Oklahoma and the cities of El Paso and Lubbock, TX. Past volunteer, Alexis Clark, will be in New Jersey, and in New York City and Long Island, NY.

Outside of the United States, Emmanuel Márquez will lead another tour all around Mexico—focusing on cities that have not been leafleted much in the past.

Jevranne Martel is starting off in British Columbia and will continue to spread the good word across the continent all the way to Halifax, NS. Jev’s tour will be a special one for Vegan Outreach, as she’ll visit schools in far east Canada that have never been leafleted before.

Sam Tucker will again hit the Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney metropolises in Australia. He’ll also be in Auckland and the rest of New Zealand. Pooja Rathor will be distributing booklets in the Indian states of Punjab, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. Siddharth Sharma will cover Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand states in northern India.

Everyone here at Vegan Outreach is super excited about this spring’s outreach team! We want to give a huge thank you to everyone—donors, hosts, and volunteers—who supports these hard working and dedicated activists. You all play a vital role in our work.

Safe travels everybody!

By Dr. Alei Fan, Guest Contributor

A team of researchers at Purdue University is conducting a survey about consumer behavior, specifically, people’s “green” (e.g., pro-environment/pro-social) consumption tendencies based on their diet preference (e.g., vegetarian).

You’re invited to participate! If you choose to take the survey, you’ll answer several questions about your diet and consumption preference or pattern.

It’ll take about ten minutes to complete the survey. Your participation in this research is confidential.

Please contact Dr. Alei Fan at [email protected] with questions or concerns.

By Jevranne Martel, VO Canada Outreach Coordinator

Over the winter break I went out with a few friends and leafleted on a few different occasions. Being that it was the holiday shopping season, we took advantage of the busy shopping crowds and leafleted in Ottawa, ON. We leafleted at Hudson’s Bay—a Canadian department store—and at the Mackenzie King and South Keys transit stations.

The experiences were all very positive and we got a lot of support. The crowds were great and positive conversations were generated in multiple instances. The best part was seeing how many people were curious about making more compassionate changes in 2017!

By Jennifer Mennuti, VO Volunteer

Sometimes, it’s a little challenging to get into the holiday spirit in South Florida while it’s 80°F outside. People here do their best, though! They string lights around their palm trees and display inflatable snowmen in their yards.

Many cities in South Florida host holiday parades and other festive events, and Vegan Outreach volunteers had great success leafleting the festive crowds this year!

First, on November 29, a few volunteers and I attended an event in Fort Lauderdale called Christmas on Las Olas. At this event, snow is trucked in to create a small mountain for kids to play on, there are bands and choirs performing, and holiday movie screenings.

Christmas on Las Olas attracts 40,000 people—needles to say, it was a crowded event. Despite all the activity, we dispersed 250 pro-veg booklets!

Then, on December 7, we leafleted at a holiday parade in the city of Boca Raton. I met up with new and veteran leafleters, and we handed out 500 Compassionate Choices booklets!

This holiday parade was the ideal leafleting event. We arrived about an hour before the parade began and approached people from the street as they were sitting along the sidewalk waiting for the parade to begin. Once the parade started, the street was blocked, so we handed off booklets to the spectators from behind.

Both events were a lot of fun and offered great opportunities for a little activism!

And for those of you who leaflet college campuses regularly, this is a great way to supplement your activism in between semesters!

If leafleting at a holiday event interests you, I recommend arriving early, wearing festive attire, and smiling a lot! People will probably be more likely to take a leaflet if you say something related to the holiday. For example, at these events we said, “Happy Holidays!”

With many cities and towns worldwide hosting holiday-themed events—whether it’s the winter holidays or Independence Day festivities—it’s an effective way to spread compassion to a lot of people!

If you don’t have leaflets but are feeling inspired, don’t worry! Vegan Outreach has you covered! Place your order for booklets here. And for a few quick and easy leafleting tips, check this out—you’ll be leafleting like a pro in no time!

By Katia Rodríguez, Mexico Campaigns and Spanish Media Coordinator

In mid-November, Emmanuel Márquez, VO’s Mexico Outreach Coordinator, and I were invited to the first ever Vegan Fest Jalisco in the city of Zapopan in the state of Jalisco—located in western Mexico. Emmanuel and I set up a table where our amazing volunteer, Izcalli Fuentes, joined us during the entire two-day event.

Emmanuel gave a talk about the work we do for Vegan Outreach and the power of leafleting. The audience was very engaged and moved by the success stories Emmanuel shared. After Emmanuel spoke, the VO table was visited by a lot of people that heard Emmanuel and wanted to volunteer for VO.

Two new volunteers that had signed up that day joined us immediately and leafleted for the first time. They did great and followed the leafleting tips Emmanuel gave during his talk!

The vegfest event had pretty much everything going on—delicious vegan food, cruelty-free products to buy, other non-profit organizations tabling, many amazing talks, cat and dog adoptions, very interesting workshops, live music, and just a lot of people having a good time.

Even though it was raining both days, that didn’t stop people from coming out. A total of 1,200 people came to the event!

Our table was very often busy. We had many positive interactions with people wanting to make the transition to a vegan lifestyle and others wanting to get active and volunteer. Many people came by and thanked us for our work and asked for advice on going vegan. At the vegfest there were many of our Facebook page followers who told us that they enjoy our page. From this event alone, we have a lot of new volunteers for our Adopt a College Program and new mentors and mentees for our Spanish Vegan Mentor Program.

We’re very happy that the number of these vegfest events in Mexico keeps growing! We’d like to thank all the organizers of the Vegan Fest Jalisco for all the time and effort they invested in this event.