Vegan Outreach, a nonprofit animal advocacy organization, is trying to reach out to campuses nationwide, to spread awareness of "animal liberation" and promote veganism through their Adopt a College program.
Jon Camp, outreach coordinator of Vegan Outreach, stated in an e-mail message that the program's job is to educate people on the realities of modern animal agriculture so they can make informed and compassionate food choices. The organization prints and distributes booklets through the Adopt a College program at college campuses, explaining the inhumane living conditions farm animals suffer in industrial farms and in slaughterhouses.
"We promote vegetarian eating as a way to reduce animal suffering," Camp said. "Animal agribusiness has done a good job of keeping the general public in the dark as to how animals are raised and killed."
He said in the last 50 years, U.S. livestock production has shifted from family farms to industrialized farms involving large warehouses where animals are confined in cramped quarters. In these facilities, animals are unable to fulfill their most basic wants and needs.
"Egg-laying hens are crowded into cages so small and tightly packed that they are unable to fully stretch their wings or move around freely," Camp said. "The average hen in a battery cage has less individual space than the size of a letter-sized sheet of paper."
According to Camp, chickens are genetically bred to grow so fast their hearts and legs can have a difficult time keeping up with an unnaturally top-heavy body, often resulting in heart attacks and leg deformities.
The Adopt a College program comprises of activists throughout the country who leaflet Vegan Outreach materials at local colleges.
Since the program began in August 2003, more than 1,000 schools have been leafleted and approximately 2 million booklets have been handed out, Camp said.
"As a whole, college students tend to be interested in considering new ideas and questioning the status quo," he said. "Therefore, we find college students to be an ideal group to reach out with the message of compassion for animals."
Camp said Vegan Outreach leaflets the university around the student centers on a regular basis.
"Whenever we do outreach at UD, the response varies from apathy to very vocal support, and most students are polite and will take a booklet," he stated. "I have had UD students come up to thank me for being there and state that they had no clue as to how animals were raised and killed before being handed a booklet."
Camp said when he hands out fliers he comes across a good amount of students who are vegetarian or vegan.
"In 2007, a Harris poll reported that the number of teenage vegetarians has tripled in the last decade," he said. "More young people are coming to the conclusion that vegetarianism accords with their values and that farm animal cruelty is something they do not wish to support."
Junior vegetarian Dawn Delle Bovi said she finds something unnatural and wrong about eating something that at one point moved and lived.
"I just don't agree with killing something that was once its own being, especially when there are other things you can obviously eat," Delle Bovi said.
She said becoming a vegetarian has forced her to eat healthier and become more conscious of what she eats.
"It also gives me less risk of getting sick from eating food that isn't completely cooked or that previously had a disease when it was alive," Delle Bovi said.
She said in this stage of her life, being a vegan does not fit in her lifestyle, but it might in the future when she financially supports herself.
"I don't think people are bad [who eat meat]," Delle Bovi said. "But, I don't think it hurts for people to become more aware of what they are eating and where it is coming from."
Junior Danielle Hakim said that in her philosophy class, she witnessed guest speaker Gary Yourofsky, who travels nationwide to speak out and inspire individuals about animal rights and ethical veganism. She said watching his video of animals in a slaughterhouse was an eye opener for her.
"I have such a love for animals and seeing them in such a state - slaughtered - gave me the worst feeling inside," Hakim said. "The movie had a bad aura and it was really sad to see what goes on behind the scenes."
She said she has decreased her meat intake since then and tries to eat substitutes in their place.
"I really like Morningstar Farms products. Their veggie chicken and veggie burgers are my favorite," Hakim said. "On Main Street, I like Home Grown Café because they can make almost all their meals vegetarian or vegan."
Camp said, for Vegan Outreach, veganism is not about being perfect or pure, but rather reducing suffering.
"It's often easy to feel like we have no control over the shape of things in the world, that we are just often passive bystanders," he said. "But each time we sit down to eat, we can choose to add the level of misery in the world or we can take steps that will lead a kinder world with less suffering in it."
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