Tuesday, 5 Feb 2002

BALTIMORE, Md.

On days like today, I feel like a traffic cop, coordinating the flow of staff and volunteers as they come to me with a host of questions about different projects. My goal is to move these projects forward and to help people accomplish their tasks. Someone in California needs a sales tax number for an outreach booth. A woman in Chicago is looking for a volunteer opportunity. I ask if she would help input data for our “Guide to Natural Foods Restaurants in the United States and Canada,” and she agrees to give it a try. The person who worked on our Passover recipes needs a bill paid. Our intern fills me in on the work she was doing concerning a question on leather. I field several inquiries from people asking about trends and statistics concerning sales of vegetarian foods, and I help our computer person figure out how to deal with the more than 500 emails he received today.

All of the above probably sounds mundane, but the reality is that most organizations cannot function unless someone is handling these kinds of tasks. Sometimes people who love going to protests decide they want to work for the causes they believe in. But a lot of people don’t understand the difference between the daily responsibilities of working for a nonprofit and the “glamorous” weekend activities where someone else has already taken care of the details.

Still, some of the details are fun, too. Today, for example, we received several entries for our student essay contest. I’m trying to read the stories as we receive them so that I’m not overwhelmed when the deadline rolls around. The essay contest is important to me because it gives students a chance to express themselves, helps us old folks remember what kids are thinking, and gives teachers a chance to focus a classroom lesson around vegetarianism. I find that I learn a lot, too.

Today, two statements from two different essays struck me. One teen wrote, “People often make generalizations about me, but…” This is certainly a problem for members of any movement. People make assumptions about you if they know that you are a vegetarian or an environmentalist or a Republican or a business person. So how do you have — and convey — strong beliefs, yet get past those assumptions? Teenagers aren’t the only ones struggling with that problem.

On a different topic, another entrant wrote, “I experience what my heroes in the Old Testament went through. They could not eat unclean meat and after many trials they came to the conclusion that they should not sacrifice animals.” To me, the real meaning of this sentence has nothing to do with religion. It doesn’t matter what your beliefs are or if you have no religious belief. This sentence is a reminder that people’s beliefs evolve. Therefore, we should appreciate the small steps that people take. If someone gives up meat for one day, maybe someday he will become a vegan. If someone recycles today, maybe tomorrow she will take a carpool or public transportation to work. We are all at different points in our lives, and we all have different steps to take. An important reason for me to commit so much to the Vegetarian Resource Group is to teach people that you can have very strong beliefs while still having tolerance for others. Surprisingly, this is a very hard concept for many people to grasp.

My day ends by going out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant with one of our founding members, who is a vegan and a holocaust survivor. He escaped to the United States; the rest of his family went to South America. He recently visited his relatives and wanted to share information on some of the great vegetarian food he ate during his trip. We’ll let our members know about this in case they are traveling. Although you can spend forever discussing the philosophical reasons for being vegetarian or vegan, most people really want the practical information: What is there to eat, and will it taste good? Of course, everyone has different ideas of what tastes good, so one of VRG’s major purposes is to support businesses which provide vegetarian and/or vegan food.

By the way, we ordered vegetarian hot and sour soup, vegetarian wonton soup, tofu with spinach, yuba and mushrooms, and hot and sour seitan. Sound strange? Don’t worry, my vegan three-year-old ordered a more common vegetable lo mein and rice. But he did eat the tofu from my hot and sour soup.