Fall New Volunteer Meetings!

Become part of Compassionate Action for Animals! Learn how to help animals while socializing with other vegetarians, vegans, and animal-friendly folks. Attend one of our new volunteer meetings on Friday, September 7, or Tuesday, September 11, from 3:30 to 4:30.

At the meetings, we'll discuss who we are and what we do, as well as your ideas for vegetarian and animal advocacy. We organize a huge variety of events and campaigns, and there is almost definitely something that you will be interested in. Everyone is welcome, whether you are vegan, vegetarian, or just interested in helping animals. Both students and community members are encouraged to attend.

Mark your calendar and help us improve and save the lives of thousands of animals this fall by becoming part of CAA!

Time: Friday, Sept. 7, or Tuesday, Sept. 11 from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Location: Coffman Union, Room 324 at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

If you can't make it to either meeting, feel free to fill out a volunteer form to stay informed about the many ways you can help animals.

Veg Week 2007: Sneak Peek

Did you know that 20% of college students identify as vegetarian? As many as 30% of diners of all ages "want vegetarian meals." Join them from Tuesday, October 2, to Monday, October 8, for Veg Week, our annual celebration of all that's veg! The festivities include an exclusive presentation by Gene Baur of Farm Sanctuary, a potluck, a cooking class, two dine-outs, and two film showings.

Mark your calendars already - this is a jam-packed week not to be missed!

• Tuesday, Oct. 2, at 7 p.m. - "Farm Sanctuary: Changing Our Hearts and Minds About Animals" Presentation with Gene Baur (formerly Bauston)
• Wednesday, Oct. 3 at 7 p.m. - Peaceable Kingdom Film Showing
• Thursday, Oct. 4, at 6 p.m. - Vegetarian Potluck
• Friday, Oct. 5, at 5 p.m. - Vegetarian Cooking Class with special nutrition tips by Suzanne Sorenson, RD
• Saturday, Oct. 6 at 11 a.m. - Peaceable Kingdom Film Showing
• Saturday, Oct. 6 at 6 p.m. - Dine-Out at Evergreen Chinese Restaurant
• Monday, Oct. at 8 p.m. - Dine-Out at Grumpy's Bar and Grill

At each event Veg Pledge participants will have the opportunity to win cool prizes!

Find out the details.

Volunteer of the Month: Beth Carpenter

During the summer before her sophomore year, Minneapolis native Beth Carpenter came back to Minnesota after studying for English and Religion at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. Wanting to contribute to the community on her break, she decided to browse through VolunteerMatch.org and spotted a volunteer opportunity as an office assistant for Compassionate Action for Animals.

Her dedication and organizational skills became apparent shortly after she started with the group. Beth diligently monitored CAA's profiles on the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace, collected snail mail, and sent out requested Vegetarian Starter Kits. To make the CAA office more accessible for new volunteers, she meticulously cataloged an inventory and created labels to better identify everything. Beth was also responsible for various research projects, including compiling information on organizations to advertise the upcoming CAA & Vegan Outreach video on leafleting, finding restaurants in the Twin Cities that use battery eggs, and tracking leafleting guidelines at various colleges.

For Beth, volunteering with CAA was an opportunity to put her beliefs into practice. "Animal issues have always been something that I have been conscious of. Luckily, in my search for places to get involved with I was able to come across CAA," she says. Not only did Beth enjoy animal activism, but she was also fond of the "laidback environment and all the excellent people."

Fortunately for the animals, Beth will continue to advocate on their behalf when she returns to Wisconsin, assisting in CAA research projects and working with the dining services at Lawrence University to phase out their use of battery eggs.

Interested in working with CAA as an office assistant? E-mail us today at info@ExploreVeg.org.

Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change

By Claudia Deutsch as printed in the New York Times
August 29, 2007

Ever since An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore has been the darling of environmentalists, but that movie hardly endeared him to the animal rights folks. According to them, the most inconvenient truth of all is that raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the sport utility vehicles combined.

The biggest animal rights groups do not always overlap in their missions, but now they have coalesced around a message that eating meat is worse for the environment than driving. They and smaller groups have started advertising campaigns that try to equate vegetarianism with curbing greenhouse gases.

Read the full article