This day marked two notable Vegan milestones for me. The first was my receipt of the Farm Sanctuary Spring 2010 Newsletter. I had been asked to share a brief tale of my experience with Farm Sanctuary. If you have read to this point, you can understand that I would have a hard time being brief, but I tried to distill my experience into a short tale. Naturally, it would have to feature Coco, my wonderful friend who has shaped so many of my experiences at the Farm. I would like to share that excerpt below, complete with a great picture that Leanne took during a visit in January, 2010 (Wow, time really flies!).
The second event key event was finding another place to share Farm Sanctuary literature. Several weeks ago, I had eaten at Merit Vegetarian Restaurant in Mountain View, and I felt like making a return visit. The food had been really good the first time and I think it is important to frequent these types of restaurants to keep them in business. As it turns out, their business seemed to be doing fine, but it is still a matter of principle. Anyway, from my seat on this visit, I could see that they had a number of racks of pamphlets, similar to those in the Loving Hut restaurant in Palo Alto. Seeing an opportunity, I asked the waitress if they would mind if I left some Farm Sanctuary brochures. She said she would have to ask the manager, so I excused myself briefly to run to my truck to get some examples. I carry around a large number of brochures in a backpack in my truck for moments just like this. When I came back in, I handed her some and ordered my food. Shortly after my food came, the manager stopped by my table to say that it would be okay for me to leave some literature. I was really excited. I relish any opportunity to get the message out, even if it is only something little like this. I hold fast to my belief that being able to connect to anyone is a powerful thing and is worthy of an effort.
While I like the food, the restaurant manager's willingness to let me share my pamphlets, ne Farm Sanctuary's pamphlets, means that he will have a repeat customer in me. Plus, it will give me an opportunity to hopefully re-stock the pamphlets. Wish me luck!
