Vegan Outreach: A Force for Good - with Jack Norris (vegan) , Part 1 of 2

Affectionate viewers, it is our honor today to introduce to you a hero of the international vegan movement, Mr. Jack Norris, who co-founded the animal-people advocacy organization Vegan Outreach in 1993 to raise public awareness about the vegan lifestyle.

“In 1992, me and a few of my fellow activists in Cincinnati, Ohio, decided that we needed to be able to create a small brochure to hand to people with pictures of how animals are treated.”

In June 1993, Jack and 11 activists from the community held a three-day “Fast for Farm Animals” in front of a slaughterhouse in Cincinnati. Following this event, Jack joined hands with fellow activist Matt Ball to form Animal Liberation Action (ALA), which was renamed Vegan Outreach in 1995. Together, they started a campaign of holding “Stop Eating Animals” banners on street corners.

“We printed out booklets, and we went to campuses and started handing them out, and we found it quite effective. We found a lot of interest in the information. We set up a website so that we could track what colleges had gotten outreach in any given semester and which ones hadn't. We tried to encourage people to go to their local colleges and hand out booklets there. And so, the ‘Adopt a College’ was born.”

Since the time of our interview with Jack, the number of sign-ups for the “10 Weeks to Vegan” program has grown to over 440,000 as of early December 2021. That’s almost twice the number of sign-ups they had in 2020, which was 250,000. Jack has his eyes set on one million sign-ups this year.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: “Gratefully present Mr. Jack Norris the Shining World Vegan Promotion Award, with all love, best wishes, and high praise for your great dedication and enthusiasm, plus US$10,000 as a simple token of support for Vegan Outreach. May God keep you in Hiers Eternal Embrace!”