CockadoodleMoo.org

This past weekend, we were invited to have a table at a big pet-adoption event at the Reno Livestock Events Center. "Livestock events" — how could we pass that up?

It was actually a great event — sponsored by Best Friends, SPCA of Northern Nevada, Nevada Humane Society and Shakespeare Animal Fund — that gave exposure to small animal charities and helped them get their word out and/or adopt rescued animals. We gave out literature from Farm Sanctuary (their recipe booklet and "Go Veg" kids stickers were a big hit), plus postcards of CockadoodleMoo and the latest edition of our newsletter Don't Have a Cow (ordering info is on the home page).

Dianne painted an awesome banner with a painting of Ally the chicken on it, as well as posters with photos of the animals. So here's where it got fun. Talking with dozens and dozens of people — none of whom were vegan — and giving them vegan stuff. One thing I'm horrible at is not judging people by their looks, and boy was I off-base at this event. 

I'm not good at talking with strangers and Dianne used to be worse, but ever since she got a job as a florist at a grocery store and is forced to deal with the public, she's far surpassed me. People I wouldn't have thought remotely interested in what we had to offer, she would say hi and offer them a newsletter. 

For instance, there were two shaved-head young women who I thought for sure would be down with all the vegan stuff looked at it and quickly averted their eyes and hustled away. Soon after them came two men in their 50s wearing baseball caps with golf-club logos on them. Dianne said hi and soon they were telling us how much they loved farm animals and each took a newsletter. 

There was a kind young woman with a pet massage business across the aisle from us. She was curious and would come over and talk and look at the materials and then go back to her place and come back a little later and take one of the items and go back and return for more. No idea how interested anybody might be, but we tried. Now we've got to get the web site going well for everybody who just got postcards with the URL. 

Of the hundreds of people there, we met only one vegan. She said, "Oh my god, I can't believe I finally met another vegan in this town." Then she turned to a guy with her, "See, other people are vegan, too!"

That was sort of our main goal, aside from generating exposure for the sanctuary: getting the word out that people who look like you really can be vegan and be healthy and happy while doing it.

Oh, one thing we learned within the first five minutes of the event was that our newsletter needed to be free. Everything but it had a sign saying "Free stuff". It had a sign saying "$4". But it quickly became apparent that no one would be interested in paying $4 to learn more about veganism. If our goal is to spread the vegan word, it had to be free. We ended up giving out about 40 of them. Can't wait to see if people respond.

~ Mark