mentorship program to get vegetarian options in schools

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

I’ve posted several times on these lists that I’ve

been working on an effort to get more vegetarian (and especially vegan) options

in schools through CHOICE—Citizens for Healthy Options in Children’s

Education—and I’m now hoping to transition into a different role

with that project and restructure the campaign.

 

I’ve spoken with a number of food service directors

about what it takes to get veg options in schools, and they’ve all said the

same thing: a concerted campaign from students to show that there is a strong

demand for these foods. Therefore, a big part of my work has essentially been being

a cheerleader to students who want vegetarian options at their school. Students

are amazingly active and busy (juggling school, sports, extracurriculars, friends,

family, dating, puberty, and everything else) so this has not been as simple or

easy as I had hoped. In addition, since these are scattered students all around

northern California, it’s been hard for me to

focus on one school or district, especially if I’m not familiar with the

community and don’t live there myself. Instead, I would like to create a community mentoring program where adults

who have an interest in getting vegetarian options into schools in their area mentor

and support students in their area who want to make this happen.

 

“Supporting” students means anything from just

checking in regularly to see how progress is going to brainstorming with them

about the best route to take next in their campaign to helping them identify administrators

in their district to advising them on what to say to their principal. I would

give people a background on what they should know to get started on this, but

then a lot is just intuitive and involves just sticking with it.

 

I have a very long list of students who care about this, and

it would be great to connect them with people in their areas who have lots of

energy and can devote more time to them as well as to potentially grow the

campaign by planning community group meetings (among other students, parents,

teachers, etc.) and reaching out to their own local contacts.

 

Getting more vgn options in schools can do SO much good:

make it more accessible for people who are already veg, offering healthy

options to all students (more and more of whom are obese), making vgn foods

more mainstream from a practical as well as a psychological standpoint (to

reduce or eliminate the sense that vegetarianism is impractical, inconvenient, or

hard), and to save animals and reduce the number of animals suffering in

factory farms as well as the impact of these farms on our water, air and soil,

and the harmful impacts on workers, the malnourished, and those dealing with

the environmental racism of factory farms. Your

participation in this project not only addresses these areas but also

facilitates young people really making a change in their school and community

that can be a huge stepping stone for them as young activists and that could

lead to many years of great work and success.

 

Please let me know if you are interested in being part of

this or if you have any questions!

 

Thanks!

 

Nora

 

“True human goodness, in all its

purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.

Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of its attitude

toward those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has

suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from

it.”

~Milan

Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

www.VegSF.com

 

 

 

Nora Kramer

Humane Educator

The Empathy Project

1042 Haight St. #3

San Francisco,

CA 94117

415-710-7351

www.EmpathyProject.org