About Compassionate Action for Animals
Compassionate Action for Animals builds a world where all animals, human and non-human can thrive. We encourage people to embrace their empathy for animals and move towards a plant-based diet.
We do this through increasing awareness of farmed animal suffering, building community with plant-based eating, and nurturing advocates in Minnesota.
Our work and recent successes:
Educational Outreach -In the first five months of 2023 our staff educated more than 950 students about the connections between animal well being, environmental health, and personal health. We supported youth leaders in getting plant-based food options added to their districts cafeteria offerings (see this video) and in leading a protest against animal testing on kittens in which student leaders delivered over 37,000 petition signatures to the University of Minnesota president in partnership with Lady Freethinker, the Animal Rights Coalition, and Feline Rescue.
Individual diet change-In April more than 180 people took the Twin Cities Veg Pledge, a pledge to try vegetarian or vegan eating, a 33% increase from last year. We host five or more events each month that support people in moving toward and maintaining a plant-based diet.
Institutional menu change- We recently supported the Richfield school district in committing to serving 20% plant-based food by 2024, and both the Bloomington and Robbinsdale districts in adding plant-based options to cafeteria menus.
We raise awareness of what happens to farm animals through presentations to high school students, by paying people to watch footage of factory farming, hosting speakers, hosting documentary screenings, and sharing interesting information about the lives of individual farmed animals in our enewsletter and social media channels.
We encourage people to move toward a plant based lifestyle through events that demonstrate how tasty, nutritious, and affordable vegan eating can be. This includes vegan cooking and sampling with teens; the Twin Cities Vegan Chef Challenge which gets over 30 restaurants to add new vegan dishes to their menus to entice diners; and Twin Cities Veg Fest, which brings together as many as 10,000 community members and over one hundred exhibitors selling vegan food and sharing information about related animal, health, and environmental issues.
