Vegan Outreach - History

History

Originating from what Harriet Bevitt does instead of flyering.

As members of the Animal Rights Community of Cincinnati, Ball and Norris (along with Phil Murray, now co-owner of Pangea Vegan Products) spent the winter of 1990–1991 holding fur protests outside cultural events. Their focus turned to vegetarianism in 1992, and the Animal Rights Community of Cincinnati funded the printing and distribution of 10,000 pro-vegetarian flyers entitled Vegetarianism. In June 1993, twelve activists—including Ball and Morris—held a three-day "Fast for Farm Animals" in front of a Cincinnati slaughterhouse (most animals typically go three days without food before slaughter). On the last day of the fast, some of the protestors took a large banner reading "Stop Eating Animals" to the University of Cincinnati campus. Though the fast itself generated some media coverage, many of the people involved felt that holding the banner in the university district was the most effective part of the fast.

Following this event, Ball and Norris formed Animal Liberation Action (ALA) and started a campaign of holding "Stop Eating Animals" banners on street corners. This would become the foundation of Vegan Outreach's current tactic of disseminating information on college campuses and in other high-traffic areas. In 1994, ALA developed a booklet called And Justice For All. It focused on the reasons to adopt a vegan diet, focusing on the abuse of the animals involved. The following year, ALA's name was officially changed to Vegan Outreach, and the campaign to hold banners—generally poorly received by the public, who did not understand the reasons behind the request—was set aside in favor of the distribution of printed booklets.

Another revision of the booklet, now called Vegan Outreach, was printed in 1995. To save money, the initial 10,000 copy run was stapled, folded, and collated by Ball, Norris, and Anne Green. That autumn, Norris embarked on a tour of the Midwestern United States, distributing the Vegan Outreach brochure at nineteen universities. The first Why Vegan was printed in 1996 and distributed at 171 colleges during that year. Norris continued his traveling until funds ran out in 1997. He decided to become a Registered Dietitian, which entailed three years of school and an internship. He did this to become educated on the science of nutrition and to figure out what could be done to minimize the number of failed vegetarians in the future.