Connecting Values With Action: Faustine Micheyl’s CAA Volunteer Experience

July 22, 2024

Faustine with her “pup” Lilou

Faustine Micheyl is relatively new to volunteering with Compassionate Action for Animals (CAA). She began this past winter with the Handwrite Hope for Animals postcard mailing campaign and recently joined the planning committee for Twin Cities Veg Fest.

How she got connected to CAA

Faustine discovered CAA through social media and decided to get involved due to her passion for helping animals, humans, and the earth. 

Her volunteer roles

Currently, Faustine serves as the social media coordinator on the planning committee for Twin Cities Veg Fest and is busy helping to plan all the great social media content for the upcoming festival. Check out @tcvegfest on Instagram and you might see one of the many fun and eye-catching reels created by Faustine that highlight various aspects of the festival. Her creativity helps us spread awareness of the festival and build excitement for attendees. 

She has also written postcards enlisting folks in the neighborhoods near Trio Plant-Based to sign a petition against the cruel confinement of farmed animals. Her past experience in social media marketing and the ability to contribute her time and talents from home made these roles the perfect fit for her.

What she loves about volunteering for CAA

What Faustine loves most about volunteering with CAA is connecting with others who share her values and knowing that she is making a difference for the animals. She shared: “What impresses me the most about CAA is the amazing people that make up the CAA community, and their dedication and passion for the work they do.”

Her inspiration for following a plant-based diet

Faustine has three main reasons for following a plant-based diet. One important motivation is her compassion for animals. Additionally, she values the positive impact of a vegan diet on personal health and well-being. She also appreciates that it is the most earth-friendly choice.

Faustine’s free time and favorite recipe

In her free time, she enjoys spending time with loved ones, traveling, and creative pursuits. Faustine also loves spending time outside and staying active.

Eating delicious foods is important to her. Two of her favorite restaurants are Trio and Hi Flora! She also finds cooking and baking to be fun pursuits. One of her favorite recipes is banana chocolate chip muffins, which she makes frequently. 

Her continued involvement

Faustine greatly appreciates the CAA community and looks forward to connecting more with fellow volunteers and other community members. She is enjoying learning more about the organization, and plans to continue helping CAA however she can.

The mutual benefits of volunteering for CAA

Volunteers are key to everything we do. They help us to accomplish far more than we can do with our small staff and amplify our impact for animals. In 2023, our staff engaged over 260 volunteers, contributing more than 740 hours, across 96 different activities — a savings of over $12,000 if we had hired them. Learn more about volunteer impact every year in our annual reports.

Equally important is that the volunteers themself benefit from enhanced skills in advocacy and leadership as well as a sense of community. This fits with our theory of change which includes the following cyclical steps: increasing awareness, building community, empowering advocates, and creating change. Volunteering touches on each of these areas.

See all volunteer opportunities here.

CAA’s Theory of Change

Our theory of change emphasizes a welcoming approach, which is recognized as most effective at creating change and models the empathy we want to promote.

The theory explains how we achieve our mission to encourage people to embrace their empathy for animals and move toward a plant-based diet. It also supports our vision of a world where all animals, human and nonhuman, can thrive. 

This change theory reflects how we grow our movement. Through our CAA programs, events, and activities, we facilitate a cyclical process of increasing awareness, building community, empowering advocates, and creating change. This process focuses on both individual and institutional change. 

What kind of change do we create? Our programs reduce consumption of animal products and improve the lives of farmed animals. In addition, they benefit the well-being of all Minnesotans.

Compassionate Action for Animals’ theory of change was initially developed in 2017 with an online survey sent to key stakeholders, two town hall meetings open to the community members, and a strategic planning meeting attended by staff, core volunteers, and board members.

Get Involved and Volunteer with CAA

If you believe in our mission and our theory of change, we encourage you to get involved too. Sign up for one of our upcoming volunteer opportunities. There are so many fun events and options to choose from. Whatever your talents may be, you can find a volunteer opportunity that’s right for you — from photography to cooking and serving food, helping with setup and cleanup at events, greeting guests, and so much more. We thank you for all the ways that you speak up for animals and help our community!

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