Vegan Activist All-Star Contest 2010

We want to make 2010 the year of Extraordinary Vegan Education! We will be choosing 12 Vegan Activist All-Stars in 2010, one each month, and we'll feature their dedicated outreach. Each will win a special prize! YOU COULD BE NEXT!

We want to encourage YOU to get out there, get creative and educate your community about veganism. You can:

• Show a film or have a guest speaker talk about a plant-based diet;
• You can have an educational table or a vegan bake sale;
• Host a vegan potluck;
• Or just get out there and leaflet!

We will be looking for interesting, creative and unique outreach as well as dedication. We can provide you with materials to help make you event a success. We have The Reason for Vegan brochure that’s a great leafleting tool and Vegan Starter Kit that offers further info and is great for an info table. We also have flyers specific to the environmental impact of animal agriculture.

TAKE PICTURES OF YOUR EVENT, TELL US ABOUT YOU AND SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY TO OUR CONTEST. You can also nominate someone else. Put in the subject line: Vegan All Star Contest and send to Hope@idausa.org.

When Kim Stulz was in high school, a friend told her about the cruel animal tests used by the cosmetics industry. The photos of exploited and abused animals in laboratories broke her heart. It didn't take long for her to discover that abuse, neglect and exploitation were also common practices in animal agriculture.

Kim found it was not only easy, but also fun to make the transition to veganism. It gave her an opportunity to find creative compassionate alternatives while also helping animals. It wasn't until after she went vegan that Kim realized the health benefits. She had suffered life-long health problems with her breathing and energy levels and found they all went away once she cut dairy out of her diet. This proof that going vegan isn't just an ethical choice that is good for animals, but also better for her own health transformed Kim into an advocate for veganism.

When she started working at the trendy and artsy restaurant Bardo Edibles & Elixirs in the Ghent District in Norfolk, Virginia, she was impressed with how open the management and culinary staff were to experimenting with different cuisines and dishes - including vegan. Kim worked with the kitchen to create a vegan menu including faux beef with broccoli, vegan tiramisu, and more. Rather than having a whole separate menu the vegan options were integrated into the menu and clearly labeled. These vegan options have become so famous around the Hampton Roads area - even among non-vegans - that several health clubs and gyms in the area talk about the guilt-free desserts in their newsletters.

Kim's approach is that if she can just get meat eaters to try a vegan option it breaks through the hardest parts of outreach - exposing the myths that fine dinning needs to include meat and that a meal isn't a meal without meat. She says "the food speaks for itself. Whenever people see it on the menu they are reminded that it is easier than ever to find vegan options and it tastes so good they are reminded that you can be good to animals and yourself!"

Kim's assistance with creating these vegan options has lead to other restaurants around Norfolk asking her for tips and suggestions. The Taphouse has switched their fake meat options from a brand that used egg whites to Gardein (a quality meat alternative that is vegan based and, we might add, quite tasty!) on Kim's suggestions. They recently expanded their vegan options and added items to their Hip - Hop brunch menu. Anyone wanting to get some tips of their own can catch Kim behind the bar there some weekends. . . talking up their famous Fried Faux Chick Sandwich which is now vegan!

Kim is also a loyal tabler for IDA at a vegan outreach events including the Richmond VegFest.

FEBUARY’S WINNER IS SYD MOST

CONGRATULATIONS SYD!

In Defense of Animals is proud to recognize Syd Most, or VeganSyd as she is widely known, as the February IDA Vegan All-Star for her creative and ceaseless campaigning for chickens and other farmed fauna. But especially the chickens, and Syd is quick to point out to anyone she may meet at the bus stop or in her daily comings and goings—animals used for food are represent the majority of animal suffering, “and the majority of those animals—over 9 billion a year—are chickens.”

The prize this month is dinner for two at the Portobello Vegan Trattoria, opened by Aaron Adams and Dinae Horne in January 2009, and is a celebration of the best of Northwest food, wine and beer, inspired by the great cuisines of Italy, Spain, and France. Among the many rave reviews, the Portland Mercury writes of their food, "...the best reason I've seen thus far to take hold of a fellow earthling's hoof, head for the clover fields, and go vegan." http://portobellopdx.com/wordpress/

Syd, a California native living in Portland Oregon since the 1980s, has been vegan for more than 30 years, and has developed a personal style of vegan outreach that is so seamlessly integrated into her lifestyle as to be more about who she is rather than what she does. Syd, like the social birds she champions, is chirpy and outgoing, and she finds every opportunity to share the vegan message with the people she encounters and she is always on message. Often, she does so wearing a chicken costume which, she says, is a great way to break the ice with strangers. “People can't resist talking to you when you’re covered head to toe in fake feathers,” says Syd, “it creates all kinds of opportunities.”

Syd is constantly involved in farmed animal outreach with both local grassroots and national organizations, and also sits on the board of a local farm animal sanctuary, Out To Pasture, but she never lets her activism get bogged down in executive or consensus-based decision making. Syd just does her own thing; which is find the right places to hand out IDA's vegan starter kits and other vegan information every single day of her life. In our Portland office, nobody goes through more literature than Syd.

The “where” of her outreach is always changing. Lately she's been talking with people at her YWCA Senior Center, she wore her chicken costume—even in 90-degree heat—to every KFC demo held in her neighborhood, that is until she and other activists shut that location down. Syd is always thinking of creative ways and places to share the vegan lifestyle. When the movie Food Inc. was in town, Syd made short work of handing out hundreds of vegan starter kits outside when the movie was letting out.

It is impossible not to admire Syd as she works her magic with people. To Syd, nobody is unapproachable and she strikes up the most unlikely conversations and often has people pledging to go “Vegan on Mondays” in a matter of minutes.

January’s winner is Susan Manns of Ottawa, Canada.

CONGRATULATIONS SUSAN!

Here’s more about our first winner, Susan Manns:

"When I was a teen I became a vegetarian for a few years and became involved in animal rescues. I went back to eating meat after I married a meat-eater. I had difficulty when cooking it and looking at it. I always knew in my heart I was doing the wrong thing by eating what was in front of me. If someone then had exposed me to the brutality behind the meat industry I know I would of became a vegan then, but at that time in my life I had never met even another vegetarian or heard of veganism.

One day I came across some activists holding a demo. When I read the information they handed me, I was stunned and felt numb. It was then that I decided to do more research and viewed the most disturbing videos I have ever seen on animal cruelty. It took no time for me to make the most important decision in my life: "NO MORE ANIMAL PRODUCTS." I lost 50 lbs, I feel years younger and my conscience is clear- no more lingering guilt.

Next was to get more active in defending animals. I was so excited and did not know what issues to tackle. I just started holding demos and before I knew it had met the most amazing people who had just as much love and empathy for animals as I did.

I am truly grateful to IDA. I have asked them many times for help and not once did they ever deny me. They inspire me to keep my spirits up when I have seen so much ugliness and get frustrated because I feel I am not doing enough.

I am so thankful for my mom who supports all that I do ... and for my best friend Louise who keeps me on track when I get angry at the world. I have met the most incredible people who are a part of our grassroots animal rights group OADL - The Ottawa Animal Defense League."

Tanya, Jason, Len, Dave, Michele, Rachel ,Liz, Emily and Katie. I know you will always be activists for those who can not speak our language. Two amazing woman who run  Teja's Animal Refuge and Refugee RR for horses Rose Gergely and Nicole Joncas. You blow my mind in all that you do each and every day. Your days are long and full of hardship for all that you see and do. Yet your strength is undeniable.

 If I die tomorrow I am glad that I could at least do some good for the animals who suffer so much who have done nothing to deserve what is happening to them.

-Vegan Activist All-Star Susan Manns