Our village? All of you. The generous supporters of Vegan Outreach. Members of the “Vegan Club.”

Our child? This movement. Our work to reduce and ultimately end the suffering of animals caused by demand for food made from them and their products.

Spreading a compassionate lifestyle to the rest of society requires a dedicated group of many thousands of people – and you stepped up! From those doing the outreach, to people donating $5, to those donating $50,000 and everyone in between – all your efforts matter and you are part of some of the most important work being done at this time in history. You are changing the world!

Because of you and others like you, more than $165,000 was donated to Vegan Outreach this holiday season – and this money has been matched dollar-for-dollar, doubling it to over $330,000! What a difference this will make for farmed animals! We will put your contributions to work right away to hand out booklets and spread a message of compassionate eating and living far and wide!

You are on the right side of social change – change that we see happening all the time, in the form of feedback from individuals who received a booklet and went vegan, new animal activists signing up to leaflet, and the ripple effects that come from a world with more vegans – more vegan options in school cafeterias, animal-friendly legislation being passed, and so much more.

You are the village. And our movement is in good hands. Thank you.

By Lisa Rimmert, Donor Relations Manager

I’m a vegan in a non-vegan world. I’m an animal advocate in a world of people who turn a blind eye to animal suffering in favor of continuing the habits that cause it.

Sometimes I am angry. Sometimes I’m sad. It’s easy to feel alone, misunderstood, and outraged by the seeming lack of compassion in the world.

But then I decide to take action – to donate, leaflet, write a letter to the editor, or even share an animal rights documentary with a friend. And it makes me feel better. And taking action is not only better for my mood; it also makes the world that much better for the animals I was sad for in the first place.

Opportunities to take action are available all the time, and right now – on December 30th – the best way to take action for animals is to make a tax-deductible contribution to Vegan Outreach. Your donation today will be matched dollar-for-dollar, doubling your impact. And every dollar donated means more booklets handed out, more vegetarians and vegans, and a better world for animals – and fewer sad and angry days for those of us who advocate on their behalf. Now that’s a win-win!

Donate now at veganoutreach.org/donate.

Leslie Patterson is one of the Adopt a College program’s most dedicated activists. She’s leafleted 8 different campuses this semester, directly handing Vegan Outreach booklets to more than 4,500 students!

Above is Leslie (right) with Tina Czerwinski at South Suburban College last spring. This semester, they leafleted Moraine Valley Community College together for six hours straight and reached 1,040 students:

Very receptive students at this suburban community college. Several students stopped with questions. One student told us he is going vegan and wants to do something to help the animals. He expressed how shocked he was to realize how animals are treated, saying, “It’s like slavery, or the Holocaust!”

—Leslie Patterson, 10/1/14

Only three days left to double your impact for farmed animals: Please Donate Now!

Cat Liguori is one of this semester’s most prolific Adopt a College leafleters. She’s been to 10 different schools this semester, directly handing Vegan Outreach booklets to more than 5,000 students!

Cat is shown above leafleting Everett Community College and below with Simone Fortune at Edmonds Community College, where they teamed with Katelyn Overland and Heather Bolint on 10/22/14. Cat notes, “It was Simone’s first time leafleting and she did amazing.” And Heather reports, “Despite the cold, windy day and pouring rain, we managed to break a new record for this school!”

Below are Kate St. John, Cat Liguori, Heather Bolint, and Aaron Ross at Western Washington University on 10/6/14, after getting VO booklets into the hands of 3,150 students – another new campus record!

Great day leafleting South Seattle Community College. One woman took a leaflet and brought it back a couple minutes later and said, “Seeing those pictures is enough, I’m a vegetarian now.”

—Cat Liguori, 10/2/14

Thanks to everyone who donates to Vegan Outreach, AAC activists were able to reach an all-time record 1,000,000+ students this semester. Together we’re changing so many lives – and with your special year-end donation today, we can expand this much-needed and powerful work even further!

Rob Gilbride and Eleni Vlachos are two of the Adopt a College program’s most dedicated activists. Rob has traveled to 13 different campuses this semester, directly handing Vegan Outreach booklets to more than 8,400 students! Eleni has also been to 13 different schools this fall, directly handing VO booklets to over 6,300 students!

Below are Rob and Syba at the University of Arizona and Eleni at ASU Tempe, where they reached more than 4,000 students in October with help from first-time leafleter Sarah Jaroch!

Rob and Eleni reached another 2,000 students, leafleting two El Paso schools in a single day:

The University of Texas at El Paso is a great campus – immediately there were streams of students in the AAC-instructed leafleting area of Leech Grove (what a great resource this has been for us to avoid going in blindly!). Most students seemed receptive – and really read the brochures as they walked (instead of texting!). One told Rob after getting the Compassionate Choices, “Thanks for sharing this, I am vegetarian but was thinking before about eating meat again. This reminds me why I’m vegetarian.” I also met two vegetarians, introduced them, and talked about creating more campus options. They also got Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating booklets.

Very receptive crowd at El Paso Community College’s Valle Verde campus. We met some veg-leaning students who were happy to get more information about this choice. I heard many discussing the booklets respectfully, and one student sat down to read it in entirety near us. Great day in El Paso…my grandpa’s childhood home (born nearby in a tent in 1910).

—Eleni Vlachos, 10/21/14

Help Vegan Outreach raise $155,000, which will be DOUBLED to help farmed animals – every dollar makes a difference!

Nettie Schwager and Cobie deLespinasse are two of the Adopt a College program’s most dedicated volunteers. Nettie (below, right) has leafleted 6 different campuses this semester, directly handing Vegan Outreach booklets to more than 4,900 students! And Cobie (below, left) has been to 7 different schools this fall, directly handing VO booklets to over 2,800 students!

Oregon State University is the school I leaflet at regularly, so I will be back multiple times this year. I had 500 mixed booklets with me, which I gave out fairly quickly. It took about an hour and forty minutes.

By the way, in August, Alicia Silverstone had a meetup in Portland which I went to. I got to meet, hang out with, and chat with her (and Chris and Bear). It was kind of surreal. She is very nice – warm and friendly. She said she knew VO. I gave her some booklets. Another one of the people there had graduated from OSU. I asked if she had ever gotten a booklet and she said, “Yes! That was what started me on the vegan path!” And when I showed her a Compassionate Choices, she said, “Yeah, that’s it.” That was gratifying.

—Nettie Schwager, 9/29/14

A lot of good feedback at Mt. Hood Community College. Several people talked about wanting to change their diets. Some said that the booklets were sad. A woman said that a friend of hers had been involved in a conversation at another school after booklets were handed out, and she (the friend) had gone vegan.

—Cobie deLespinasse, 9/30/14

Create More Vegans: Click here to have your donation doubled before the December 31 matching deadline!

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.