As the Outreach Coordinators’ leafleting tours come to an end, we’d like to acknowledge this semester’s most prolific leafleters of Vegan Outreach’s Adopt a College Program.

We’ve asked each of them to share their favorite memory from this fall—hearing their stories will definitely leave you feeling inspired. Let’s get to it!

John Deetjen, Outreach Coordinator

“It’s difficult to pick one specific interaction—there were many things that made this semester great. It was really encouraging to hear students talking in mass about the concept of Speciesism—thanks to our new booklet.

It was also cool hearing from so many students who are very close to going vegan, and it’s great to provide them with the resources on how to do it. One student at College of Dupage even called our resources the, ‘Answer to her prayers.’ She’d been wanting to go vegan and now she is confident she can.”

John leafleted at 88 schools this semester and distributed 75,318 leaflets.

Steve Erlsten, Northern California Outreach Coordinator

“Meeting Gisella at Contra Costa College was a great reminder that some people need extra encouragement to put their compassion into action. She’d been vegetarian for about 18 months and was excited about the information in the Guide to Animal-Free Eating I gave her. By the end of our conversation, she was confident that she could go vegan and stay vegan!”

Steve leafleted at 89 schools this semester and distributed 72,304 leaflets.

Kimberly Moffatt, Outreach Coordinator

“My favorite memory from the semester was when I leafleted with volunteers at Nassau Community College. Altogether we spoke to about 20 people—students, faculty and security guards—who were either interested in going vegan or reducing their animal food product consumption. We talked to people who’d tried going vegan once and wanted to try again, and everything else in between. I told them how they could text and receive our Guide to Animal-Free Eating and explained VO’s mentor program.”

Kimberly leafleted at 58 schools this semester and distributed 35,350 leaflets.

Miguel Marrón, Outreach Coordinator

“Last week I was leafleting at Riverside City College, and I talked to a student who received a booklet from VO one year ago. She’s been vegan ever since.”

Miguel leafleted at 41 schools this semester and distributed 46,136 leaflets.

Emmanuel Márquez, Mexico Outreach Manager

“My favorite outreach moment this semester was at the Universidad Regiomontana in Monterrey, Nuevo León, MX. While tabling, I met Patricia. She learned how cows are treated in dairy farms while viewing Animal Equality’s iAnimal Virtual Reality.

After watching the 360 footage, she told me she felt good for not taking part in that system anymore. She attended a Humane Education presentation I did last semester, and after that she gave up dairy. She shared that using iAnimal made her desire to avoid dairy stronger and motivated her to keep moving forward to always eat vegan.”

Emmanuel leafleted at 62 schools this semester and distributed 47,674 leaflets.

Yuri Mitzkewich, Southeast Outreach Coordinator

“One of my favorite memories this fall was our visit to Florida Southwestern State College. We had a lot of great conversations—the interest in our message is heavy at community colleges and small universities because students rarely get information shared about veganism. That is one of the more important functions I feel VO does to spread the message about animals.”

Yuri leafleted at 85 schools this semester and distributed 70,909 leaflets.

Read Part II for another round of inspirational stories from more of the Fall ’17 top leafleters!

Donate in honor of a leafleter today to keep their work going.

 

Thanks to thousands of generous Vegan Outreach donors, we’ve accomplished a lot for animals together in 2017!

Get all the details—and simple instructions for replacing eggs in baking—online now! Thank you for making this work possible with your donations to Vegan Outreach!

In the past few months, people from all over the US have been telling California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) that they’d love to support a vegan cheese pizza option. Our campaign was so successful, we were able to get one CPK location—in Tukwila, WA—to add Daiya cheese as a dairy-free alternative.

It’s created such a buzz online that our petition has now got over 30,000 signatures! Your signatures and comments on CPK’s social media pages are vital in making sure they know what their customers want—to roll out vegan cheese pizza to all of their locations!

Let’s keep the momentum going! Here are three easy things you can do to help:

SIGN THE PETITION

Sign the petition asking CPK to join countless other pizza chains who’ve added vegan cheese to their menus.

SHARE A SELFIE

Print out this sign, snap a quick photo, and post it on Facebook. Make sure to tag California Pizza Kitchen and Vegan Outreach, and include a link to the petition.

TELL CPK ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Politely comment on CPK’s social media pages telling them you’d love to be a customer if they add vegan cheese pizza.

Talk to them here:

Thank you for helping us make this CPK campaign a success!

Vegan Outreach has joined animal advocacy group Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) in asking one of the world’s largest pizza chains to add a dairy-free cheese! Pizza Hut has 13,000 restaurants in 130 countries, yet hasn’t joined the countless pizza chains who have added options for vegan and dairy-intolerant customers.

Here’s what you can do to help.

1. Sign the petition.

Take 30 seconds and sign FARM’s petition to show the national support for a vegan cheese!

2. Fill out a Pizza Hut postcard.

Order postcards here, and on May 14, join the national day of action by delivering them to the manager at your local Pizza Hut. Make sure to snap a photo to share on social media, tagging @Pizzahut and ending your post the #pizzahut hashtag!

3. Take a selfie!

Print out this sign that reads “I want dairy-free cheese because…” and write in why Pizza Hut should carry vegan cheese. Snap a selfie with the sign and share on social media tagging @farmusa and @veganoutreach with the #DemandDairyFree hashtag.

4. Send a quick email or make an easy call.

Take two minutes and fill out the Pizza Hut customer feedback form asking them to offer vegan cheese. Follow up by calling your local Pizza Hut and asking to speak with a manager—tell them you’d love a vegan cheese at their location.

5. Reach out to Pizza Hut online.

Comment on Pizza Hut’s Facebook page telling them you would love to support a vegan option. Do the same on Twitter and Instagram to triple your impact!

These steps only take a few minutes and could convince one of the largest pizza companies in the world to invest in an option that doesn’t harm animals and makes vegan eating more accessible. Thank you!

Welcome to the last installment of our three-part series featuring this semester’s most prolific leafleters of Vegan Outreach’s Adopt a College Program.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the other top leafleters, be sure to see Part I and Part II!

This week we’ll introduce you to the top 5 leafleters—who’ve all reached a mind-blowing number of people, and, as a result, helped a countless number of animals!

Kimberly Moffatt, VO Outreach Coordinator

“My favorite leafleting experience this semester was at Radford University in Radford, VA. Not only did I meet many vegetarians and vegans, but also I had a few conversations with people about the leaflets. Everyone, including staff, was super friendly and even started cheering me on throughout the day!”

Kimberly leafleted at 77 college campuses this semester and distributed 61,692 leaflets.

Emmanuel Márquez, VO Mexico Outreach Coordinator

“One of my favorite moments during my leafleting tour in Mexico was when I visited the city of Guadalajara. I was invited to give a presentation at Jalisco Vegan Fest on the effectiveness of leafleting and to set up a table. The presentation went very well—the audience was engaged and was asking a lot of questions. One of the students, Lucía, later told me that she wasn’t very interested in the beginning, but ended up enjoying it.

“After the talk, Lucía went to our table and bought a Vegan Outreach t-shirt. She also signed up as a volunteer. Three days later, Katia Rodríguez—VO Mexico Campaigns & Spanish Media Coordinator—and I were visiting a nearby high school and Lucía woke up at 5:00 am to help leaflet. Lucía is super shy, but she overcame that very fast. She told me she was inspired by what I shared in my presentation on how one person can spare many lives by doing this simple and effective activity.”

Emmanuel leafleted at 65 college campuses this semester and distributed 40,949 leaflets.

Sam Tucker, VO Australia & New Zealand Outreach Coordinator

“While I was leafleting at Swinburne University of Technology near Melbourne, Australia a student stopped and asked me why I was vegan. I told him I was vegan because I was against animal cruelty. Then I asked him why he ate meat. He said he hadn’t really thought about it before. We talked for a while about how animals are treated on factory farms and how you can get all the nutrients you need without eating animals.

“After talking for 15 minutes or so he decided he would try going vegan! He took a Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating and he also took some more leaflets to give to his friends!”

Sam leafleted at 50 college campuses this semester and distributed 41,183 leaflets.

Yuri Mitzkewich, VO Southeast Outreach Coordinator

“My favorite day of the fall semester was when I leafleted at the University of Alabama’s main campus in Tuscaloosa, AL in mid-September. Within a short amount of time, I met not only one, but three, vegans! What was great was that the third vegan who passed by, Stephanie, was an officer for the new student animal rights club, Vegan Alliance. Stephanie told me that they had five members when the group started in August and that the group had grown to an astounding 36 members in just a few short weeks! This is a great sign of a growing awareness and compassion for animals at this major southern university!

“Thanks to Vegan Outreach being on campus that day, we helped sign up three new members for the student group, and now I’m making plans to team up with Vegan Alliance during the spring semester. Just one of many great developments I saw taking place across Alabama this fall!”

Yuri leafleted at 88 college campuses this semester and distributed 66,522 leaflets.

Steve Erlsten, VO Northern California Outreach Coordinator

“One highlight of this semester was meeting a student named James at Cal State San Bernardino. He had been vegetarian since receiving a booklet from Vegan Outreach last year. We spoke for a few minutes, and he told me he was excited to try to go vegan with the help from the Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating booklet I gave him.”

Steve leafleted at 82 college campuses and high schools this semester and distributed 58,886 leaflets.

A big round of applause to these 5 leafleters, as well as to every other member of the Adopt a College Program.

The time and dedication everyone put into doing outreach is time well spent for the animals! We look forward to seeing you all next spring!

As the fall semester winds down, we’d like to acknowledge this semester’s most prolific leafleters of Vegan Outreach’s Adopt a College Program.

We’ve got so many dedicated leafleters that we want to recognize we have to split this blog post up into three parts! See the next Part II and Part III as well.

Let’s meet the first round of activists as they recall their favorite leafleting moment from the fall semester!

Houston Wong — Kirkland, WA

“My favorite leafleting experience this semester was going on the Canada (British Columbia) leafleting tour with Heather Bolint, the Seattle Grassroots Director of The Humane League. We met many inspiring animal advocates along the way, and I was able to hand out leaflets to 1,045 people at the University of British Columbia, the college from which I graduated. This world has hope, and I thank all animal advocates for what they do.”

Houston leafleted at 26 college campuses this semester and distributed 13,477 leaflets.

Lana Smithson, VO New England Outreach Coordinator

“The interaction that stands out the most is when the first student I spoke with at the State University of New York in Canton, NY (SUNY Canton) informed me she hasn’t eaten animals since receiving a leaflet from me the previous year. She then said, ‘Your outreach works!’ ”

Lana leafleted at 33 college campuses this semester and distributed 13,528 leaflets.

Pooja Rathor, VO India Outreach Coordinator

“I met this man—pictured below—who acknowledged cruelty happening towards animals, but he wasn’t aware of the dairy industry. He said, ‘You people are like a blessing at such a young age. You are having such good intentions, and I had no idea that I’ve been part of such cruelty. I will surely try dairy alternatives.’ ”

Pooja leafleted at 19 college campuses this semester and distributed 10,087 leaflets.

Jamila Alfred, VO Maryland/DC Events & Outreach Coordinator

“I was very excited being assigned to leaflet at Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, NC. FSU is my mom’s alma mater and Fayetteville is my second hometown! Being there automatically felt great and the students were absolutely warm and wonderful—not to my surprise. I was ecstatic with how many students were interested in hearing what I had to say about the relation between speciesism and racism. I am still talking to some of them today!”

Jamila leafleted at 31 college campuses this semester and distributed 9,439 leaflets.

Sean Hennessy, VO Greater Ohio Outreach Coordinator

“When I was leafleting at Western Michigan University, I met Mark, a senior studying English and Spanish. He told me that during his freshman year he received a Vegan Outreach leaflet with moving pictures and information about animal cruelty in the meat industry. The leaflet was one of the main reasons he went vegetarian. Mark is now working on going vegan—he was excited to see the non-dairy yogurt recommended in Your Choice—and he likes that Vegan Outreach has a strong campus presence because students are still developing their worldviews.”

Sean leafleted at 50 college campuses this semester and distributed 35,361 leaflets.

A huge thank you to these wonderful activists! Be sure to tune in next week to meet the next round of this semester’s most dedicated leafleters!

Continuing our three-part series of highlighting this semester’s most notable leafleters of Vegan Outreach’s Adopt a College Program, let’s turn our attention to these four hard-working Vegan Outreach employees and volunteers as they tell us about their favorite interactions of the semester! Be certain to see the earlier Part I and the next Part III as well.

Jevranne Martel, VO Canada Outreach Coordinator

“I recently had a conversation with a hunter who started off aggressive and defensive when he heard I was handing out vegan information. I turned the conversation around instantly by letting him know I was aware most hunters hunt because they are against factory farming and the cruelty in the large agricultural businesses. He said, ‘We need meat to survive.’ Then we had a great conversation about the negative health aspects of eating meat, dairy, and eggs. He left the conversation by taking VO’s Your Choice booklet and a Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating.

“When he saw me later on he told me that he wanted to know more information and that he was interested in making the shift. He said he wanted to cause the least amount of harm possible.”

Jevranne leafleted at 60 college campuses this semester and distributed 43,825 leaflets.

Katia Rodríguez, VO Mexico Campaigns & Spanish Media Coordinator

“My favorite leafleting experience was at the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, where I met Rubén, an economics student. After receiving a leaflet from me he came back to ask a few questions. I answered all of his questions nicely and respectfully. What I loved about his response was that he was surprised and happy to meet a friendly vegan who was willing to having an open dialogue without attacking him. He has had bad experiences with talking to vegans in the past. He even told me that he’d give it a shot and transition to a vegan diet.”

Katia leafleted at 56 college campuses this semester and distributed 32,711 leaflets.

Rachel Shippee, VO Outreach Coordinator — Wauconda, IL

“My favorite leafleting experience this semester was at the University of Nebraska Omaha in Omaha, NE. I had numerous conversations with people who said they had been thinking about the issue or wanted to get involved. One conversation that sticks out was with a hunter who was skeptical at first, but left agreeing with our message and told me he would look further into plant-based eating.”

Rachel leafleted at 37 college campuses this semester and distributed 30,096 leaflets.

John Deetjen — Grayslake, IL

“I would have to say my favorite leafleting of the semester was in October at Macalester College. Macalester is a small school in St. Paul, MN, and the reception here was fantastic! My friend Rachel Shippee and I dropped 340 booklets in only an hour. And during that short hour we had numerous fantastic conversations with students who were interested in moving towards veganism.

“I had many great conversations with students about the ethics of eating animals, and with the help of the Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating we chatted about how they could move towards a plant-based diet in a sustainable way. Great use of an hour!”

John leafleted at 32 college campuses this semester and distributed 14,201 leaflets.

Thank you, Leafleting Rockstars! Your hard work is appreciated by a lot of people and animals!

Next week we’ll wrap up this three-part series by featuring this semester’s top 5 leafleters! You’re not going to want to miss it!

We’ve accomplished a lot for animals together in 2016!

Get these stories and more—and a bonus Pumpkin Pie Bagel Spread recipe—online now! Thank you for making this work possible with your donations to Vegan Outreach!

By Lori Stultz, VO Rocky Mountain Outreach Coordinator

I’d like to introduce you to this unique sounding band—Moon Hooch—that’s growing in popularity. If their music doesn’t draw you in immediately, then maybe knowing that the three band members are vegan and very environmentally conscious will do the trick.

I first became aware of them a few months ago and have listened to their music while pouring over articles and interviews—

When I looked up their tour schedule and saw that they were going to be playing in October at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, CO—where I live—I knew that this interview had to happen. I recommend cranking up their latest album, Red Sky, while you get familiar with the band.

Lori Stultz: Where are you from? I notice that you [Wenzl] have an accent, whereas you two [Mike and James] don’t.

Mike Wilbur: I was born and raised in Boston, MA. I lived in Brooklyn, NY for 8 years, and went to school in Manhattan, NY.

Wenzl McGowen: I was born in Spain, and I’ve lived in Germany, Austria, and Portugal. I lived for 9 years in New York. My mom is from Chicago, IL and my dad is Austrian. They decided not to raise me bilingual, so my first language is German.

James Muschler: I am from Cleveland, OH. I lived there for 18 years and then I moved to New York. And that’s where I met Mike and Wenzl, at The New School.

Lori: How did Moon Hooch come to be? Did you intentionally come together to form a band?

Mike: We definitely did not decide to intentionally form a band!

Wenzl: We were all living in this house together with a bunch of musicians. James and I started to have this thing where we played house music on the streets of New York because both of us were in this band called the A-Typicals, which was an electronic dance music band.

I was playing sax lines that were based on repetitive, simple kind of stuff that you’d find in electronic dance music. And James was playing house beat. And then Mike ran into us and joined us.

We just started going out together and playing, and I started writing simple songs that were based on electronic dance music with blues-based melodies. And from there it kind of grew into what it is now.

Lori: When did it become a goal to travel and do tours?

Mike: We never really had plans to do anything but make money playing in the subway in New York. We were broke college students. Then Mike Doughty saw us down there and offered us a national tour. And then we had a small national following over a period of a month after that.

We’ve just been building on that for six years, slowly. And now here we are at the Fox Theatre.

Lori: Tell me about your collective vegan journey. Was it a group decision?

Wenzl: Yes, it slowly became that. My ex-girlfriend is very health conscious and conscious of the impact she has on the environment. She just kept informing us of what was actually going on in the animal industry, but it took years for that to sink in and for us to give up our desire to eat meat. It’s been about five years since we all went vegan.

Lori: What kind of advocacy/promotion do you do on tour? Do you try to make it known to your audience that the band is vegan?

Wenzl: We post videos, James keeps a food blog, and when we’re in vegan restaurants we post photos of food. We also give out flyers about veganism at our shows.

Lori: I read that you try to cook your own meals on the road. How do you do that?

James: We carry a toaster oven and that thing [pointing to a portable camp fire stove]. We also carry our own utensils.

Mike: [Laughing] James is on a squash bender right now, it’s ridiculous. We’re traveling with like five squashes.

We try to buy only local at co-ops and stuff in the different cities we go to.

Lori: Do you all also try to check out a lot of vegan restaurants while you’re on the road?

Mike: We checked out WaterCourse Foods while we were in Denver, CO—that was amazing. If we know it’s going to be worth it, we’ll check it out. But we’ve been trying to eliminate waste this tour. We bought a water filter and we’ve been using reusable bottles.

Lori: Do you try to make issues about waste known to your audience as well?

James: Yes, but we try not to make it overkill and shove it in people’s faces. We like to lead by example.

Lori: What’s your favorite part about living on the road? And what’s your least favorite part?

Mike: [Laughing] My favorite part is that our parents don’t tell us what to do anymore!

No, just kidding. My favorite part is that I get to play music everyday. My least favorite part is everything else, especially sitting in the car for 4 to 6 hours everyday between cities.

Wenzl: I think my favorite part is to give this kind of experience to people every night. And to have this kind of experience for ourselves, too. Doing shows…it sorts of breaks all these layers of perception that you build up during the day.

Sometimes you take reality so seriously. You know? And then in the end you’re on stage pouring out your soul and you just feel this insane energy of love and understanding. It transcends all these tools we have to communicate with each other.

James: Ditto!

Wenzl: And I think my least favorite part is having no privacy. It’s like we have to hang out with each other 24/7 and then sleep in the same bed at night.

Mike: [Laughing] Ditto!

Lori: Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you want people to know?

Wenzl: Whenever we’re having this moment of transcendence, whether it’s through music, through nature, through meditation, through yoga, or whatever it is, it’s important to remember that that’s out there. When it gets really tough in life, this complete bliss and acceptance is something that’s attainable. Even if it gets really dark and frustrating and sad and angry and all of those things, there is this other level of being within all of us.

Mike: Every time someone eats meat, something was murdered and tortured so that they could eat that meat. People’s actions matter.

James: Mushrooms are way better than meat—they’re easier to eat and they take way less time to cook! They’re very tasty.

Lori: Thank you, James, Mike, and Wenzl, for taking the time while busy on tour for me to spend time with and interview you! We sincerely appreciate all that you do to spread the vegan message of compassion.

And as the timing may have it, VO’s newly published Everyone Loves Music booklet even features quotes from the band members.

Vegan Outreach’s Executive Director, Jack Norris, RD, has written an update about Vegan Outreach’s attempts to assess the effectiveness of leafleting: Leafleting Effectiveness Study – Fall 2016 Update.

To summarize the state of the project, we are in the midst of our third pilot test to determine how best to go about measuring direct diet change created by leafleting and we are optimistic that we’ve found a method that can provide a reasonable amount of statistical certainty. The drawback is that it comes with a price tag of about $40,000. For this reason, we are likely to conduct it in waves over the course of a few semesters.

Excerpts from the Full Article

People have always asked us at Vegan Outreach how we know whether leafleting makes a difference.

We have mainly had anecdotal evidence to provide them, such as the Lives Changed and Recent Feedback pages on our website, which list some of the feedback we receive from people who have changed their diets due to receiving a booklet.

The impact that can be palpably felt on college campuses when leafleting—by talking to interested students, seeing people reading the booklets, and overhearing people discuss the issue—typically leaves an activist with a strong sense that they have just done a lot of good. These feelings are what keep so many leafleters going out day after day.

Nonetheless, it would be great to have more precise information about the impact of leafleting. This is no easy task, since there are at least four scenarios where leafleting is likely to make a positive difference.

• Direct Diet Change: A person receiving a booklet is moved emotionally or intellectually by the suffering of farmed animals and adopts a vegan diet.
• Word of Mouth: The original booklet recipient shares that information with others either through conversation or passing along the booklet.
• Touchpoint: A person is made aware of the suffering of farmed animals by a booklet, which makes them more likely to change their diet when presented with a future outreach activity.
• Animal Protection Community-Building: Leafleting is a low barrier-to-entry activity for new and experienced animal activists alike. Taking part in leafleting outings builds important connections between people and organizations in the animal protection community.

Historically, studies on leafleting have focused on the first scenario (direct diet change). Vegan Outreach’s current efforts are also focused on determining how likely people are to change their diet after receiving a booklet. However, to get a full understanding of the benefits of leafleting, these other dimensions have to be taken into consideration, and may themselves be subjects for future investigations.

A 2016 Harris Poll commissioned by the VRG found that “Approximately 3.7 million U.S. adults are vegan; 4.3 million are vegetarian but not vegan.”

To my knowledge, these polls are the best information we have on how many U.S. adults are vegan, and they show that over 22 years—and a great deal of activism—we have increased the number of vegans by about 3 million.

Click here for full article.