This semester, Kim Moffatt has traveled to 38 different schools, handing out 19,679 booklets, and Vic Sjodin, VO’s Director of Outreach, has handed out 8,027 booklets at 25 different campuses!

Kim and Vic spent several weeks in India this semester—leafleting colleges and universities, speaking to students, and giving seminars to local activists.

On January 25, Vic spoke to more than 100 students at Rama PG College in Lucknow:

Abhishek Dubey [below, far right] is a stellar volunteer: a young engineer and passionate vegan who held the fort leafleting solo at this small college for several hours.

Below is Kim at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, where she and fellow activists reached 3,400 students on February 1.

On February 17, Kim and Vic stopped at Gujarat University in Ahmedabad, where they handed out 800 booklets with help from a young volunteer (below, right) and Shweta Sood. On February 26, Kim and Vic teamed with Sanjana Sharma, Subru Santakumar, and Fivos Deshpande at the Rajeev Gandhi College of Management Studies in Navi Mumbai, handing out 3,000 booklets. Vic reports:

Best part of the day was meeting Nisha [below, left], who read the booklet and was moved and asked why we were here. I spoke to her to cement what the booklet had awakened in her and after those 10 minutes further explaining things, I asked, “Do you have any other questions or comments?” To which she slowly answered, “I think you just turned me vegan.” Bingo.

On March 29, Kim handed out 1,300 VO booklets at Utah Valley University:

I briefly talked to a vegan woman and her husband [below, left]—after our conversation and getting a leaflet, he’s now going vegan!

On April 6, Kim and two volunteers reached more than 2,000 students at the University of Manitoba:

Fantastic start to the Canadian part of the tour!

I met with volunteer Jade Dimaline, who was leafleting for the first time but it didn’t seem like it after I gave her a few tips—she was super comfortable talking to everyone and had a fabulous arm extension!

Then I was met by Trevor Chapen, a great local activist who has leafleted and done presentations to kids before. That’s when we met Jonah Olson [below, center], who wants to get involved after being handed a leaflet today! We also met a student, Taige [below, right], who is interested in moving towards a vegan diet after receiving a leaflet from us today! That was an incredible feeling.

Now you can inspire twice as many new vegans and spare twice as many animals from suffering: Make a donation to Vic’s Team Vegan page and receive dollar-for-dollar matching!

By Melissa Li, Vegan Outreach Board Member

Part of the joy I experience in the animal rights movement is to hear an activist’s story of how they became involved in animal rights, what influenced them, and what they find as an effective means of activism. I am fascinated by what propels someone to go forward and take further action, because it inspires me to be more active. The Pig In Thin Air: An Identification is Dr. Alex Lockwood’s personal account of how he became involved in animal rights.

Do you remember the Facebook image of a pig leaping out of an open bed truck headed for slaughter? That this image was taken from the car behind the truck, on a busy street in China? Many animal rights activists likely know this image that quickly went viral, and remember that the pig, who, because she fought to escape and save her life, was allowed to live. This image resonated with the author Alex Lockwood, and is the source of the title for the book.

Each animal rights activist’s story depicts a path, from becoming aware of atrocities imposed on animals, and journeying towards action against these atrocities. Dr. Alex Lockwood originally began his career as an environmentalist and as an academic. As he approached his mid-thirties, he struggled with unease, and he knew that his health and personal relationships were faltering. He knew there was a disassociation from his feelings and his own body. As he began to correct these issues in his life, he became cognizant and empathetic towards issues in animal advocacy.

He was awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship in 2014, and used this to travel to North America to learn from animal advocates. Originally, he was to be stationed at the Vancouver Aquarium as a visiting writer in residence. However, the Vancouver Aquarium became a target of an animal rights campaign; he aborted this, and quickly became involved with animal rights groups. I found it interesting to read his perceptions of different methods of action, and to read of his encounters with contemporary groups such as Direct Action Everywhere and Toronto Pig Save, as well as better established organizations such as Farm Sanctuary.

Throughout his interactions with various organizations, he cites references that support the idea that one must be aware of one’s physical body—to embrace it in order to relate to a nonhuman animal’s body. He quotes Lori Gruen:

[T]he distinction between self and other isn’t one of distance and it doesn’t entail dominance or subordination…it is centrally important that one has a balanced and clear self-concept to be able to engage empathetically with others.

When Dr. Lockwood was able to reconnect with his body, it gave him the capacity to live a more compassionate, feeling life.

Dr. Lockwood frames The Pig In Thin Air into two questions: 1. What makes an animal advocate? And 2. How can I be a good animal advocate? Interspersed in these sections are his experiences and citations from several established references regarding efficacy. His writing is eloquent, benefiting from his background in writing. He is open about his personal history, and willing to describe his setbacks. Towards the end, he chooses his own path for animal advocacy, which for every animal rights activist, they must find their place. In the culmination of his summer fellowship, his action in animal advocacy is an achievement; it is astonishing as well as inspiring. He has found his way, and knows he will fight for animals for the rest of his life.

This semester, Pooja Rathor, VO’s India Outreach Coordinator (below, left), has handed out 15,827 booklets at 23 different schools, and Shweta Sood (below, right) has traveled to 24 different campuses, handing out 9,067 booklets!

Below are Shweta at Aryabhatta College (left) and Pooja at Motilal Nehru College (right); these schools are part of the University of Delhi South Campus, where Shweta and Pooja teamed with fellow activists on January 19 and reached more than 2,800 students!

On February 24, Pooja got booklets into the hands of more than 700 high school students (four below) at Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Sector 10 Dwarka:

The response was great. Kids were approaching to take leaflets by themselves. They had doubts that cows’ milk is not a healthy option; I tried to answer all of their queries. A few kids also shared their stories about the animals they love.

On April 11, Pooja handed out over 1,200 booklets at Sri Aurobindo College:

The guards were super helpful and genuine. At times they stopped the students who missed the leaflet.

I met Kavinder, who came back from the metro station after reading the leaflet and said, “I liked the content—I would like to volunteer.”

A guy named Prince said, “I never knew that animals had to stay in such pathetic conditions.… I won’t be able to eat chicken anymore.”

While leafleting metro stations in Delhi, Pooja met Priya Chauhan (below, far left), who helped leaflet on the spot and would like to volunteer in the future, and Gyalpo (below, right), a vegetarian student who was happy to get some booklets to give to his meat-eating friends.

Support Vegan Outreach’s work by taking part in our Team Vegan matching challenge: Through June 30, all donations up to $200,000 will be matched, dollar for dollar, doubling your impact for the animals!

New versions of Why Vegan and Even If You Like Meat are now in stock!

You can download PDFs here and order print copies here.

By Toni Okamoto

As you can see from the photo, the VO staff was so excited about Safeway’s new cake that we couldn’t even wait to have a photo taken.

I’m especially excited because before Safeway put out the Vegan Midnight Chocolate Cake, it was a real pain for my family to buy me baked goods for celebrations. They’d have to special order weeks in advance from the local bakery and would end up spending $35 for a six inch cake. I’d often feel so bad they spent so much money that it was hard for me to enjoy it.

This cake is a real game changer, though! It’s only $8.99 and you’d never know it was vegan. I also found out that Vons and Safeway are the same brand, so Vons carries it, too. Click here to find the location nearest you.

 

Great news!

Excerpts from Time.com, January 28, 2015, Vegan Meatballs on Ikea Menus Soon:

“The vegan twist on the Swedish meatball will be sold in IKEA stores starting in April. It’ll join new vegan and vegetarian options from Chipotle and White Castle, among others.”

By Josie Moody, Office Manager

In November 2014, Vegan Outreach launched its Vegan Mentor Program, a program that connects vegans with people who want to eat less meat, become vegetarian or become vegan. Vegan Mentors provide guidance to mentees on all things vegan, from what to eat to how to participate in social gatherings. As we’ve continued to develop the program, we’ve realized that we want to provide more resources to people in various stages in their lives, and in various living situations.

As a result, we’ve decided to create the blog series “How Do YOU Vegan?,” hearing directly from real vegans about how they incorporate veganism in their lives, complete with meal ideas. In our inaugural post, we are pleased to have activist and mother Lesley Parker-Rollins share her experiences raising and feeding a vegan family.

About Lesley and her Family:

We live in Lutherville, Maryland, a suburb 15 minutes north of Baltimore and an hour outside of DC. Baltimore suburbs are not nearly as veg friendly as DC. That said, the grocery stores in the area have exploded with vegan fare so that is fantastic!

I became vegan in 1998, married Ray (who was not vegan or vegetarian)in 2000, and by February of 2001 he became vegan. We had Tyler in December of 2001, Will in April of 2003 and Maya in October of 2007 and they were all healthy vegan pregnancies. Tyler is now 13 1/2, Will is 12 and Maya is 7 1/2.

Since we are ethical vegans first and foremost and we also don’t have a lot of money, we don’t own a Vitamix but still should try to incorporate more fresh and whole foods into our diet! Everyone has a different way of doing things but eating without contributing to animal cruelty and overall eating healthily is a way of life for us and works for all five of us just fine.

It’s definitely fair to say that we eat a lot of typical American meals simply veganized. Other than MOM’s Organic Market and Whole Foods Market we mainly shop at Wegman’s, Giant and Safeway to save money. We are big fans of Indian, Thai, and Italian and Mexican as well and incorporate at least two or three of these types of cuisines into our weekly dinner. Here is an example of what each of us eats in a typical week:

Breakfast Monday-Friday
Lesley: Nature’s Path Pumpkin Flax Granola with almond milk, orange juice and coffee with almond milk and sugar.
Ray: Cinnamon Raison Bagel with Earth Balance, grapefruit juice and coffee with soy milk and sugar
Tyler: Raisin Bran with soy milk, banana and apple juice
Will: Bagel with Earth Balance, cantaloupe, yogurt and apple juice
Maya: Whole grain Bagel with peanut butter, yogurt, banana and apple juice

We all take a vegan multivitamin, calcium, DHA and B12 supplements.

Weekend Breakfast for Ray and kids (I’m boring and eat the same thing for breakfast everyday!)
Pancakes or waffles with Earth Balance, tofu scramble, sausage crumbles or links and juice

Lunch
Lesley & Ray: Whole grain bread, Veganaise (or Just Mayo!) Tofurky slices, lettuce and avocado. Sometimes I add a slice of vegan cheese and love the new Follow Your Heart Provolone slices.

Tyler, Will & Maya: Gardein Chiken Sliders and a generally a couple of the following sides: strawberries, carrot sticks, Nutter Butters, granola bars, Oreos, cantaloupe/melon

Other lunches on Weekends
Tofu salad sandwich, mock tuna or mock chicken sandwich, grilled cheese, soups, veggie burgers, Tofu Pups, salads, Sloppy Joe’s, couscous and veggies with almonds, three bean salad, potato chips and fried onion rings.

Kids Snacks:
Clif Bar Builder Bar, pretzels, Wheat Thins, fresh fruit, cashews, trail mix, celery with peanut butter, peanut butter crackers

Dinner (We all eat the same dinner every night)
1. Tofu Stir Fry with Vegetables over brown rice
2. Coconut curried chickpeas, onion and petite green peas over brown rice
3. Eggplant Parmesan with salad
4. Spaghetti and vegan meatballs with salad or coleslaw, or fresh carrot, celery and green/red pepper sticks
5. 11 Bean Soup and whole grain bread
6. Gardein Chiken Tenders, Tater Tots and petite green peas
7. Lasagna with ground “beef” crumbles and raw veggies
8. Chiken/Beef/Veggie Quesadillas
9. Pizza – Maya and Will like plain and Ray, Tyler and Les like it topped with mock sausage and vegetables like spinach and black olives or green pepper and onion. Usually served with fresh raw vegetables or salad.
10. Thai Curry Chiken stir-fry
11. Gardein Fish Filets with spinach, and baked potato.
12. Pasta with field roast sausage, red sauce and green pepper
13. Macaroni and cheese with broccoli
14. Black bean burgers with house salad, chips and guacamole.
15. Lentil loaf or Field Roast Celebration Roast with mashed potatoes and garlic zucchini and onion

Desserts

I always keep a freezer full of vegan cupcakes/desserts for the continuous slue of birthday parties so I don’t have to make cupcakes at 7am to send into school with the kids if a birthday is being celebrated that day. The teachers are happy to have a shelf in the classroom with the kids’ names on it stocked with vegan snacks for them for any occasion.

Vegan sweets we enjoy include ice cream, ice cream sundaes, brownies, cookies, cake, cupcakes, Sour Patch Kids, lollipops, chocolate covered pretzels, popsicles, Jolly Ranchers and more.

Dining Out:

We don’t have a ton of money to go out but , we like most people, love going out for pizza. We love Homeslyce Pizza in the city and the kids will have lemonades and Ray and I will have a couple of beers. Homeslyce isn’t a vegan restaurant but they have great vegan options for pizza. (Most pizza crusts are naturally vegan, and if you can start with a marinara sauce and start building your pizza from there).

We love Great Sage’s all-vegan restaurant for brunch, lunch, dinner and dessert. www.greatsage.com My favorite lunch there is the Tempeh Rueben and our favorite dessert there without a doubt is their Chocolate Lava Cake. The kids love their Mac n Cheese and Ray loves their Barbecue Southwest West Wrap.

Our family loves Thai food and will often pick up the Kung Pao Vegan Tofu from Whole Foods and have that over rice with veggies when we can’t go out to Thai Arroy for dinner.

Mock Tuna (or Chiken) Salad
2 cans rinsed and drained chick peas*
1/4 red onion diced
2 stalks celery diced
3 Tbsp. Veganaise or Just Mayo
1/2 Tablespoon Pickled relish
Salt and pepper to taste

*For a mock chicken I substitute “Wegman’s Meatless Chicken Style Strips” after sautéing with onion and garlic.

The sandwiches taste great on Whole grain bread with green leaf lettuce! Yum!

Vegan Bisquick Pancakes:

We substitute Ener-G Egg Replacer for eggs and soy milk for dairy milk. You can add whatever fruit you like (we like blueberries) and sometimes add flax seeds, maple syrup and Earth Balance margarine (available at most grocery stores).

 

Today in our latest installment of How Do You Vegan?, we talk with middle school teacher and vegan Christopher Hills. After going vegan himself, Christopher decided to use his position to help teach his students about how their choices affect animals and their health, and other reasons why they should go vegan. Thank you, Christopher, for your inspiring work!

How long have you been vegan, and what made you decide to make this change?

I became vegan on April 1, 2015, but it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. That day just happened to be the day after I watched “Earthlings” for the first time. Back in 1991, when I was a high school sophomore, for some school reason I researched farm animal treatment, and upon seeing some horrific videos, I stopped eating meat. I had always been leery of meat and found it generally gross, and I stayed largely meat free after that. Over time, I rationalized that eating fish was good for me and I “needed the protein.” Trainers I worked with lamented that I was hard to create menus for with my limited diet, so for the past several years I ate fish on a regular basis. Now, as an enlightened vegan, I know that plenty of protein is to be had from meat free sources.

You are married with children. Has your family joined you in this change? If so, what are some positive results or experiences you’ve had?

Since I do the majority of the food shopping for the household, the other family members get very little in the way of animal products. My wife is lactose intolerant, and she tried to eat vegan for a while, but backslid pretty quickly. She suffers after eating ice cream but deems the pain worth the experience. Whether she means her pain or the pain of the animal who had to produce the milk for her, I don’t know. My kids still eat meat and dairy when they can, but I won’t cook it for them. My wife still will cook them meat and eggs, but if they eat my food, which they love by the way, it will be vegan.

Why is Vegan Outreach an organization that you support?

I believe that creating awareness surrounding nutrition and food sources is crucial. Vegan Outreach is local and has a mission that I believe in. Vegan Outreach also differs from other vegan groups in that they think that any step toward veganism is better than no step at all. Some vegan groups can be pretty militant in their approach, and offer only all or nothing as choices. Something like “Meat-free Monday,” while untenable in the long run, is a step in the right direction. Yes, it means that you are contributing to the suffering of animals, polluting the planet, and poisoning yourself six days out of seven, but it’s still positive movement.

What inspired you to make the leap from being a vegan in your personal life to creating a club for the students at your school?

I work with an interesting group of students. I teach intervention classes, and have some of my middle school students for 4 and a half hours a day, so I get to know them pretty well. Also, I’m pretty approachable to my students, so they ask me a lot of questions. After I watched “Earthlings,” I told my students about this mind-blowing documentary that transmitted to me this information that everyone who eats should know. They all knew I was a pescetarian, and I informed them of the change I made in my life to becoming a vegan. Because the disgusting manner in which animals used for human purposes was forefront on my mind after watching that documentary, I worked random facts and figures about animal mistreatment into my daily teaching. After a few days, some students came to me and told me that they had watched the documentary at home (I explicitly told them that they needed parental permission before watching it) and wanted to be vegan. At our school at the beginning of the school year, teachers are encouraged to sponsor lunch time and after school clubs. Sometimes teachers are interested in a particular thing so they create a club about that, other times kids come to teachers with ideas and ask them to support their ideas. I asked some kids if they’d be interested in this club, and got enough interest to move forward with it. We started our meetings in October 2015.

Has creating this club resulted in any push back and/or support from students, the school itself, and/or parents?

Our activities director has been very supportive of the Earthlings Club, ordering shirts for us and encouraging us to engage in lunchtime activities, and I haven’t had any response, negative or positive from the administration. The only response I’ve heard from any parents is when they come into my classroom and see the vegan posters or comic books I got from PeTA. They have asked a few questions about what they’re for, but once I inform them that they’re for a lunchtime club, they seem OK with it.

What is the purpose of the club? Do you host or participate in any events?

The purpose of the club is to inform students and the school about the benefits, both personal and world-wide, of practicing a vegan lifestyle. We meet once a week and we poll the student body at lunchtime. We may ask them true/false questions about veganism, or we may ask them if they’d be willing to support a petition to get more vegan/vegetarian items on the lunch menu. We wear our shirts when we’re out there so we’re pretty visible.

What has been the most rewarding experience thus far as a result of creating this club?

What I have most enjoyed about the club is interacting with the student body in a way that I don’t usually get to as a teacher. In talking to the students, I find out about their dietary preferences and tolerances. So many students are open-minded about changing their diets, and many of them are genuinely interested in wanting to change our planet for the better.

Can you offer any helpful advice to those who might be interested in doing something similar in their school or area?

Just go for it. I get a lot of playful (maybe?) kidding from other teachers about imposing my views on the students, but if we don’t make some pretty drastic changes as a society, and do it pretty soon, the Earth will make the changes for us. Nobody who is thinking rationally could have any issues with someone who promotes a vegan lifestyle.