Monday 6/20/11 - Day after my birthday:
The morning started out like most mornings. I have really been getting used to the whole routine. At 9:15AM, we have our morning media meeting; at this meeting people who want to pitch ideas go up to a microphone and tell us what ideas they have for campaigns, etc., usually these ideas come from news sources. After the meeting I spent the morning doing some research on ideas to blog about for the PETA blog. At around 1:00PM I went to the national mall to work on the Animal Liberation project. The afternoon had some highs and lows like all the days I have worked on ALP. The lows was this really obnoxious woman walked up to our exhibit with her many kids and husband. She walked over to the panel that reads "Slaughtered" where two photographs stand side by side. One photograph is of a pile of dead pigs and another is a pile of dead humans. She was not even fazed by the humans, but looked at the pigs and let out this obnoxious crackling laughter. Her kids walked over smiling and her husband stayed in the background. I offered her a free DVD about animal rights and a vegan recipe book, but she gave me her hand and said, "Oh please... you have to be kidding me." I just don't understand how some people could be so cruel and laugh at horrific scenes that make me want to cry.
Friday 6/24/11 - Slow morning and afternoon:
The afternoon at ALP went quite well. There were a few highlights that stood out so much for me:
1) A young intern who is working at the IRS came by and was really intrigued by the Animal Liberation Project exhibit. I gave him a Vegan Starter Kit, DVD, and Animal Liberation Project leaflet. We talked for a few minutes and he said he really wanted to help out and volunteer for PETA. I do believe he will go vegan.
The morning started out like most mornings. I have really been getting used to the whole routine. At 9:15AM, we have our morning media meeting; at this meeting people who want to pitch ideas go up to a microphone and tell us what ideas they have for campaigns, etc., usually these ideas come from news sources. After the meeting I spent the morning doing some research on ideas to blog about for the PETA blog. At around 1:00PM I went to the national mall to work on the Animal Liberation project. The afternoon had some highs and lows like all the days I have worked on ALP. The lows was this really obnoxious woman walked up to our exhibit with her many kids and husband. She walked over to the panel that reads "Slaughtered" where two photographs stand side by side. One photograph is of a pile of dead pigs and another is a pile of dead humans. She was not even fazed by the humans, but looked at the pigs and let out this obnoxious crackling laughter. Her kids walked over smiling and her husband stayed in the background. I offered her a free DVD about animal rights and a vegan recipe book, but she gave me her hand and said, "Oh please... you have to be kidding me." I just don't understand how some people could be so cruel and laugh at horrific scenes that make me want to cry.
Tuesday 6/21/11 - Fur Protest:
In the morning media meeting I learned that the pope just got a hybrid pope-mobile, an idea was thrown around about how we could reach out to the pope. I spent my morning going through news sources and searching for more blogging ideas in addition to listening to our campaign organizer call the press and send out press releases about our anti-fur demonstration. At around 11:00 in the morning we left for downtown Washington DC and set up six dog kennels on the side of the sidewalk in two layers of three; six PETA interns climbed in and put on real fur coats in the scorching heat. They all held signs, some said, "Animals Are Not Ours To Wear" and others said, "Summer Is No Fun For Animals On Fur Farms." One person stood on each side of the cage, one wore a television showing what happens on fur farms and held up a (plastic) skinned fox. The other held up another "Animals Are Not Ours To Wear" sign. I handed out flyers about cruelty free fashion on the corner of the street. About seven different media sources came to report on our demonstration including The DCist (click on the link to see their story about us.) Only two people offended me at the demo. One woman said she loves wearing fur and I just don't understand that. Another woman said that she hoped our plastic skinned fox was real so that we would get in trouble for animal abuse. I mean, really? She hopes we would get in trouble for trying to help animals, but she didn't even think twice about what the video showed about fur farmers and how they skin animals alive for fur. Overall most people walking by said that they do not wear fur and wound up taking a cruelty free fashion guide, which also explained the problems with leather in addition to the problems with fur.
Wednesday 6/22/11 - Being told to die?:
My morning was full of research and I contributed a bit of good information tot he morning media meeting. It was the afternoon that go the best of me. It was just another day doing outreach at the animal liberation project until an older woman and her family walked up and I offered them a free animal rights DVD and magazine. The woman got in my face and told me to go die. I stood there in shock. Her family walked by on both sides of me smirking. I all of a sudden got so hot and enraged. I thought for a while after that and realized that someone telling me to die means nothing to me, but being out there and helping to improve the lives of animals means the world and I will never let someone like her scare me away from what I feel is important.
Thursday 6/23/11 - I decided to be nice and do two outreach events today:
Things were fairly slow in the office after I got back from my 8:00AM animal testing outreach event, which went amazingly well. People were responsive and receptive. Only two people gave me and the other girl I was with a hard time. A man who did research on animals told me I had no idea what I was talking about (when in fact I did because I have done a lot of research on the subject) and another woman who worked for Proctor and Gamble one of the most biggest corporations who test on animals like crazy (please do not buy anything from Proctor and Gamble). The Proctor and Gamble woman told us that it is important to test on animals and I told her it is not necessary and the government does not even require it because there are so many other ways to day to test products like fake skin, cell tubes, computer robots, etc. I also told her that nine out of 10 tests on animals were proven to be ineffective when the final test was tested on humans. Basically this means that animal tests are counter productive.
We had an hour long staff meeting when we got back. The meeting was about all of the things PETA has accomplished in June and was very inspiring for me. The afternoon outreach (ALP) event went really well. We were set up at The Foggy Bottom metro station by George Washington University and there were swarms of people. I could not believe how much literature we got out.
Friday 6/24/11 - Slow morning and afternoon:
The afternoon at ALP went quite well. There were a few highlights that stood out so much for me:
1) A young intern who is working at the IRS came by and was really intrigued by the Animal Liberation Project exhibit. I gave him a Vegan Starter Kit, DVD, and Animal Liberation Project leaflet. We talked for a few minutes and he said he really wanted to help out and volunteer for PETA. I do believe he will go vegan.
2) A father and son (around 18 years old) from upstate New York, who did not seem like they were the type to be interested in animal rights came over and asked me if PETA was trying to stop all the abuse in factory farms and of course I told them what we are doing to stop it. I started talking to them about veganism and if they weren't ready to go vegan what they could do. They walked away with loads of information, a Vegan Starter Kit, a DVD and an ALP leaflet and I could tell that the son was fed up with the meat industry, he couldn't stop watching the video and looking at the exhibit.
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