By Lisa Rimmert, Donor Relations Manager

As I spend this holiday week with family and friends in the Midwest, I am reminded that vegans and animal advocates are a relatively small demographic. We still make up only a fraction of the population, especially in rural areas like Southern Illinois, where my family resides. But our power and influence cannot be overlooked. We are making people think, and we’re changing hearts and minds toward a brighter future for animals. Our numbers are small, but we are a powerful force for good.

This is evidenced by all the work we accomplish for animals:

The eleven staff Outreach Coordinators and hundreds of volunteer activists at Vegan Outreach handed out more than one million booklets this fall semester alone – an all-time leafleting record. Since our founding, we’ve distributed booklets to more than 24 million individuals all over the US, as well as in Australia, Canada, and Mexico. We hear all the time from people who have made positive changes for farmed animals – taking steps toward and fully going vegan.

It’s also clear to me based on the compassion of VO supporters:

Compassion is a great motivator, so although our numbers are small, animal advocates are an incredibly powerful group. Just this past week:

• A young man donated to VO the entirety of his reimbursement for unused sick days and vacation days in 2014
• A woman feels so passionate about VO’s work that she gave not once but three times to our year-end matching drive – just because she wanted to help that much!
• Multiple people asked and received donations to Vegan Outreach in lieu of Christmas presents for themselves.

These are just a few examples of individuals using their compassion to make the world better, investing in the ongoing work of Vegan Outreach to ensure a brighter future for animals.

We may be David to the Goliath that is animal agribusiness, but all the work we’ve accomplished together – and all the compassion that fuels our continued progress – gives me confidence and hope for a more compassionate future.

Thank you to everyone who makes this work possible. If you haven’t had a chance to donate this December, please take a moment now to contribute. Be a shining example of the compassion that makes our movement so powerful. For the animals!

Shura Hammond is one of this semester’s most prolific Adopt a College leafleters. She’s been to 9 different campuses this semester, directly handing Vegan Outreach booklets to more than 5,700 students!

Below are students at Clover Park Technical College, Palomar College, and Highline College, engrossed in reading the VO booklets they received from Shura this fall.

It was a beautiful, rainy day at Pierce College! I had a handful of great interactions and gave a Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating to a girl who had recently seen a video in class on factory farming. She asked if I had more information about nutrition and cooking vegan meals. She seemed really excited about it, which was great.

—Shura Hammond, 10/30/14

Support VO’s Adopt a College leafleting program: Make a donation to Vegan Outreach today and you’ll double your impact for the animals!

by Jack Norris, Executive Director

On December 2, the Humane Research Council (HRC) released a report about vegetarian recidivism, How Many Former Vegetarians Are There? I would like to thank HRC and all the people who funded this important research.

The report had a lot of information, much of which they’ve summarized in the article linked above, and I’m going to comment on just a few aspects of it.

A quick overview of the report is that it was a cross-sectional survey of 11,000 people in the USA aged 17 and older. They found that 2% are currently vegetarian/vegan, 10% are ex-vegetarian/vegan, 86% of people who go vegetarian lapse back into meat-eating, and 70% of those who go vegan lapse.

Former vegetarians/vegans adopted the diet at an older age, were more likely to list health than other reasons for going vegetarian/vegan, and transitioned onto the diet faster than current vegetarians/vegans. Former vegetarians/vegans were likely to stick with it less than a year with one-third lasting three months or less; 43% found it difficult to be pure. This seems predictable – when making a resolution to improve one’s health, people often start strong and quickly fade.

The good news regarding former vegetarians/vegans is that about half are interested in trying again and the survey indicates they do not eat large amounts of chicken (on average one-third serving of chicken per day).

Of former vegetarians/vegans, 29% indicated suffering from at least one in a list of health-related problems while vegetarian/vegan. I have discussed this more in my post Vegetarian Recidivism Survey at JackNorrisRd.com.

I have traditionally resisted promoting a vegetarian/vegan diet for health reasons because it could cause people to give up the diet without much of an attempt to stick with it, go on to portray the diet negatively, and possibly eat more chicken than they previously did (in an attempt to avoid red meat, the most unhealthy of the animal products). Based on these results, I can see loosening that position somewhat.

On the other hand, I don’t see this survey as suggesting the health argument is necessarily the way to go, either. One of the big differences between former and current vegetarians/vegans is the extent to which they believed their diet was part of their identity and this was presumably because they had more than health reasons to be vegetarian/vegan.

Other research has had a similar finding. In their 2013 paper, Differences between health and ethical vegetarians. Strength of conviction, nutrition knowledge, dietary restriction, and duration of adherence, researchers found that “[E]thical vegetarians could experience stronger feelings of conviction and consume fewer animal products than health vegetarians, and may remain vegetarian longer.”

HRC suggests that we view vegetarian/vegan advocacy as a long-term relationship, not just a single point of outreach. With the recent addition of our vegan mentorship program and blogging about vegan food and products, Vegan Outreach has been focusing more on supporting people in their transition. We plan to create another program to support people in the coming months.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is a cross-sectional study and, therefore, cannot show causality. I think it’s a great start at finding out some valuable information, but we shouldn’t assume it’s the last word and I’d caution against drastically changing tactics based on these results alone.

John Jungenberg and Rachel Shippee are two of the Adopt a College program’s most dedicated volunteers. John (below, left) has traveled to 40 different campuses this semester, directly handing Vegan Outreach booklets to more than 12,000 students! And Rachel (below, right) has been to 20 different schools this fall, directly handing VO booklets to over 9,000 students!

This semester, John and Rachel reached 1,000 Northwestern University students and 360 Evanston Township High School students in a single day:

Awesome day at Northwestern! We heard from many vegetarians and vegans; and met Julie, who went vegan from getting a booklet and now wants to get involved!

ETHS is a great high school for outreach. We could even have used one or two more leafleters for this huge school. We beat our total from last semester, so we are happy!

—Rachel Shippee, 9/22/14

Above: John (right) reports from the College of Lake County: “I met Shauntice (left), who went vegetarian three weeks ago when Alex Corrigan (center), Paul Picklesimer, Araceli Rodriguez, and I leafleted there! I also met someone who got a leaflet from me at Grayslake North High School and reduced her meat consumption. I Guided everyone I talked to!”

Give to Vegan Outreach today and double your impact for the animals! Now through December 31, each dollar donated will be matched up to $155,000.

Dave Mosick is one of the Adopt a College program’s most dedicated volunteers. He’s leafleted 13 different campuses this semester, directly handing Vegan Outreach booklets to more than 14,000 students!

Below are Kassy Ortega and Dave at George Washington University, where they got booklets into the hands of 1,700 students in a single day! Kassy reports: “Record breaking day at GWU! With the help of Dave ‘Vegan Superhero’ Mosick, we killed the record by 500!”

The following week, Dave teamed with Kassy at Howard University, and together they reached 1,350 students:

Best day at Howard ever! Where do I start? In the morning when I got there, I leafleted for about an hour and half, and a student came and chatted with me. He was extremely defensive at first, claiming that I can’t force my beliefs on other people. Continuing to leaflet, I told him I wasn’t forcing anyone to take a booklet or forcing anyone to read the booklet; I also told him the booklet wasn’t about beliefs – it’s factual information which people can do whatever they want with. He then asked me: “Do people actually go vegetarian from this booklet?” I told him, “Through my experiences, YES! People care about animals, and make positive changes based on this factual information; you should really just read about it yourself.” I wasn’t mean, but I was firm. He wouldn’t take an Even If You Like Meat, but he took a Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating [below]. He came back to me 45 minutes later and told me he got a veggie sub at Subway, and that he wants to try eating meatless for a week!

Dave showed up, being awesome as usual. (It was around 95°F by now!) He’s so sweet – he brought me an iced tea. He also had an amazing conversation with a kid who got an Even If You Like Meat and now wants to go VEGAN! Insane in the membrane!

AMAZING DAY.

—Kassy Ortega, 9/2/14

Your donation to Vegan Outreach will create more vegans: Give to VO by the December 31 deadline to double your impact for the animals!

Chelsea Collins, VO’s Australia Outreach Coordinator, has leafleted 29 different schools this semester, handing out more than 15,000 Vegan Outreach booklets!

Below are Chelsea (on a freezing morning at Federation University Australia) and University of Newcastle veg club member Louis Hill with Caitlin Davies, who went vegan as a result of receiving a VO booklet from him on campus last semester!

This semester at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne City, Chelsea reached 450 students with Your Choice booklets:

Today was absolutely freezing, windy, and it was raining again. I felt like I was standing on ice blocks in a gale all morning, and I only lasted a few hours before throwing in the proverbial towel. Umbrellas and hands in pockets were my enemy. I take my hat off to those of you who are able to leaflet when it’s below freezing and/or snowing. Seriously.

One lady came back past and stopped to tell me that she thought our work was really important; and she told me that she has a couple of colleagues doing their PhDs on animal issues at this school, which I thought was cool.

Melbourne is famous for being the city of “four seasons in one day.” Well…by the time I got home the rain had stopped, the clouds were gone, and there was nothing but blue skies. It even warmed up and I felt foolish. Melbourne, you win this round but I’ll be back.

—Chelsea Collins, 9/2/14

Support VO’s Adopt a College leafleting program: Give to Vegan Outreach by December 31, and your donation will be matched, dollar for dollar!

Rick Hershey and Chip Ballew of Ohio Vegetarian Advocates are two of this semester’s most prolific Adopt a College leafleters. This fall alone, Rick (below, left) has traveled to 43 different schools, directly handing Vegan Outreach booklets to more than 37,000 students! And Chip (below, right) has been to 15 different campuses this semester, directly handing VO booklets to over 11,000 students!

I tabled and leafleted indoors at Southwestern Illinois College today. Seven students decided to go vegan after visiting my table; photos of four of them below.

—Rick Hershey, 10/28/14

Your Donation to VO = More Booklets = More Vegans = More Animals Spared!

And through December 31, you can double the impact of your donation!

Guest Post by Liz Gary

Liz Gary knows how to roll up her sleeves and bake some cookies! Three years ago Liz decided to dedicate the second Saturday of December each year to gathering friends together to bake, decorate, and gift wrap vegan holiday cookie packages to share with family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Her special cookie gifts come complete with vegan recipe gift cards that are meant to create “food for thought” and inspire the lucky recipients to consider a vegan diet. Most people don’t think about cookies as a way to help people start making the connection between diet, the environment, and animal welfare but Liz found that using a little sweetness can go a long way! Gather your friends together and bake cookies for a cause! Here’s how she did it.

Chef Gina Sample, founder of the Vegan Lab demonstrates how to make vegan and gluten-free holiday cookie dough in the gourmet kitchen of vegan bloggers David and Donna Kater

Interior Designer Susan Matanguihan came to learn more about vegan and gluten-free baking and help out with creative ideas for gift wrapping and packaging the cookie gifts.

Soy to the World! Vegan Cooking Instructor and Founder of Veg Appeal Tracy Childs monitored the ovens and helped distribute a variety of cookies including vegan and gluten-free cherry thumbprints, vegan gingerbread men, roll-out cane sugar cookies, pecan snowballs, and chocolate chip walnut cookies.

Holiday bakers assembled cookie gift packages at a wrapping station that included recipe gift cards that help raise awareness to the fact that cookies can still be delicious (and even better!) when you leave out the traditional eggs and dairy.

Each participant was invited to make up to six cookie gift packages, host David Kater (left) looks on while Paul Yancey proudly displays his cookie creations.

Holiday joy was abundant with caroling and drawings for special gifts including an online Vegan Fusion course donated by author Mark Reinfeld, a Vegan in Volume Cookbook donated by the Humane Society of the United States, and Earth Balance t-shirts donated by Boulder Brands.

Liz Gary’s event this year raised funds for both Vegan Outreach and the Veg Fund. Both donations were matched dollar for dollar increasing her total contribution to $400.00 for vegan outreach projects in 2015. Liz develops and coordinates a variety of vegan outreach events throughout the year including free Vegan Food Fairs and Meatless Monday Family Cooking Classes held through the San Diego Public Library System. She leads plant based culinary tours, consults to the foodservice industry and plans to host her first Vegan Fashion Show and Food Fair in 2015. For more information and tips on hosting a vegan fundraiser contact Liz by email at [email protected].

Lana Smithson, VO’s New England Outreach Coordinator, has leafleted 32 different campuses this semester, handing out nearly 12,000 Vegan Outreach booklets!

Earlier this month, Lana and first-time leafleter Andy Charles reached hundreds of students at the University of Southern Maine:

The weather in Maine has been icy and awful lately, and today there was steady cold rain, so we stayed indoors next to an enclosed walkway. Andy was a natural at leafleting. He has a great sense of humor and did some joking with students, which made for a fun atmosphere. He’s excellent at engaging in conversations. One student told him that he’s been thinking for a while about going veg but just hasn’t done it yet. Andy was very encouraging and told him a bit about his experience on the path of going vegan. The student thanked him and was motivated to give it a try!

—Lana Smithson, 12/10/14

Support Vegan Outreach’s work by setting up a new automatic monthly contribution today, and a generous donor will triple the amount of your first month’s donation!

By Toni Okamoto

Wondering what to get for the vegan who has everything? How about something fun AND useful?!  Here are some of my kitchen favorites, varying in price but comparable in good quality!

Jeanette Zeis Vegan Dishes

Noodlehug Art

Vegan Cutting Board

Fabulous Kitchen Apron

Refrigerator Magnet

“What I Eat” Hebivore Clothing Tote

Betty Rawker Nut Bag

Jeanette Zeis Nutritional Yeast Jar