Voices of CAA, Our New Blog

If you've looked at our website lately, you might have seen our latest addition, Voices of CAA. This is a multi-author blog, with posts written by various folks involved in CAA.

We will be writing on topics related to animal advocacy, activism, and vegetarianism. So far we've posted several entries on topics such as activism strategy, how to "sell" vegetarianism, and a response to a recent essay by Vegan Outreach.

There have already been some good responses in the comments, so please take a look and join in. If you have your own blog, we've enabled Trackback as well. And of course, we provide RSS and Atom feeds for those so inclined.

By engaging in a public dialogue with the larger animal-rights community, we can learn to be more effective and share what we've learned over the years with others.

Please take a look and tell us what you think.

Volunteer of the Month: David Scholtz

David Scholtz has been a regular volunteer with CAA for over three years. Now graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in political science and English, Dave first learned about CAA from a poster for our New Volunteer Meeting. Shortly after attending the meeting Dave delved into a variety of areas within the group - everything from becoming a Veg Starter Kit stand adopter and postering to designing flyers and staffing events.

Taking the animals' plight seriously, Dave has made a major impact by raising awareness about factory farming and vegetarianism through distributing leaflets. Whether serving as an on-site coordinator for CAA's Minnesota College Leafleting Day or a late-night leafleter at popular youth concerts, Dave has single-handedly distributed nearly 5,000 leaflets in the past few months! For Dave, leafleting "leads to the most amount of progress - with the biggest bang for the buck."

Dave's strong passion for animal advocacy is a reflection of his interest in animal ethics and dedication to effective activism: "I think animals deserve rights, for the same reason humans deserve rights, because they're sentient beings with an interest in living their own lives without torture, confinement, and suffering." His future aspirations include becoming an animal lawyer, advocating for legal rights for animals, and rendering factory farming obsolete.

Learn more about our volunteer program and fill out an application to help animals!

Walk for Justice: CAA Walk-A-Thon

A great way to contribute to CAA is to participate in the Walk for Justice on Sunday, September 16. The Walk for Justice is a fundraising event for nonprofit organizations in the Twin Cities and is a great way to raise funds for our continued work while exposing those in the local nonprofit community to animal issues.

Raising funds for the walk is easy - just ask your friends, co-workers, classmates, and family for small donations. With lots of walkers, the support adds up. On September 16, we gather to collect the donations and celebrate our work to protect farmed animals. We hope to have at least 20 walkers this year, so please sign up and start collecting pledges

Article: Animal Welfare Issues Boiling

Many firms in the industry have moved to undertake a number of changes in response to customer concerns.

By Jerry Hirsch as printed in the Los Angeles Times

July 2, 2007

Americans are increasingly picky about what they eat - especially when it comes to the ways that farm animals are killed, processed, sold and served as food. And U.S. businesses are catching on.

Fast-food chains are changing the way they purchase pork and eggs; chefs are dropping ingredients not seen as animal friendly; farmers and slaughterhouses are changing how they treat livestock; and one grocery store chain is adding animal-welfare ratings to its meats.

...Change, whether it is in the way meat-producing animals are raised or the conditions in which hens lay their eggs, is likely to come slowly, said Peter Singer, a Princeton University bioethics professor.

"It is too soon to say if these moves will dramatically alter the way America is farming, but they are hopeful signs," said Singer. "It is good that the market is responding to consumer demands."

Read the full article here.