Distributing Food Samples

Distributing food samples is an excellent way of demonstrating the benefits of a healthy, compassionate diet through delicious vegan food. It's also a great way of attracting a crowd... most people are drawn to free food! Offer samples of meat-alternatives at a busy downtown intersection, in front of a supermarket or restaurant, at a university, or any other location you see fit. Be sure to let people know what they're eating and where they can purchase it. Offering food samples works well in conjunction with leafleting or an information table.

Vegan food samples are now available for your outreach activities!
Manufacturers provide free food for your Meatout activities. Visit the Meatout food donors page for details.

Another great resource is VegFund.org!
Veg Fund provides funding for vegan food, serving supplies and any table/booth fees. They also provide ideas on venues, recipes, and educational literature.

Workplace Feed-Ins

This type of event offers ample room for effort and creativity. It can be as simple as putting out some veggie snacks, Meatout posters, and handouts in a college dorm or workplace lunchroom, or it can be as ambitious as getting a major corporation, university, or hospital cafeteria to go vegan

Public Meal

A great form of outreach, public vegan meals are a fun way to demonstrate the great taste and many benefits of cruelty-free cuisine. Below are tips on how to go about planning a public dinner:

1) Form an organizing committee to help with the planning. Ask friends and family to help you out and encourage fellow animal advocates in your community to join you.

2) Choose a venue. Ideal possibilities include:

• Veg Restaurant (the food will already be taken care of!)
• Church
• Community Center
• Civic Hall

3) Make a food plan. Here are some ideas:

• Hire a caterer to supply vegan food (if you need help covering the costs, you may want to consider asking for donations from guests or a small fee to attend).
• Ask for help from volunteers. Encourage friends, family, and volunteers to help you with the event by asking them to each make a couple dishes.
• Make it a potluck. Ask each guest to bring a vegan dish to share with others (please specify no meat, eggs, or dairy).
• Obtain food samples from Meatout manufacturers. Each year, we work with manufacturers so that activists can obtain food samples for events. While this won't cover the entire meal, it will add some variety and demonstrate the wide variety of vegan options. Details on manufacturers will be posted on the Meatout homepage when available.

4) Promote the event. Publicizing your plans to community members is the best way to ensure a good turnout. Below are some easy ways to get the word out:

• Make flyers with event details and distribute them around various places in your community -- hang them up on bulletin boards, natural foods stores, veg-friendly restaurants, etc. Don't forget to give them to your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors, as well.
• Send an e-mail announcement to everyone in your address book and/or community e-lists you may be joined to.
• Utilize newspapers by posting announcements in the classified sections.
• Contact your local media.

Quick tip: Give your audience something to do while they wait in line and while they eat. Setting up a literature table or visual display adjacent to the serving area gives your audience something to look at as they inch closer to the food. Another popular idea is to set up a sit-and-eat area with a speaker or video presentation at the end of the food line. See below for details.

Leafleting/Literature Distribution

Leafleting is the simplest type of event to organize because it requires no permit, no equipment, and little planning. Popular locations are fast food outlets at lunch time and college campuses between classes, but any busy area will do. In addition to Meatout handouts (which can be requested when you register), check out VeganOutreach.org for additional pamphlets.

Quick tips:

• If you are leafleting on public property (like sidewalks), you do not have to leave (just don't block the sidewalk or doorway).
• The use of a display board provides additional information (especially to those who don't stop for a leaflet).
• Free vegan food samples, a costume, or other displays add a lot; wearing a t-shirt with a message also helps spread the word.

If you’re short on time, simply drop our colorful Live Vegan handouts off at various locations throughout your community. Locations can include libraries, universities, health food stores, or anywhere else you see fit. Request a pack on the Meatout Registration page.

Information Table/Booth

Information tables are the most popular type of activity, requiring only a handful of people and a few hours of planning effort. All you have to do is pick a popular location and busy time of day, obtain a permit if necessary, then show up for a couple of hours with a table, a couple of chairs, and lots of display and handout materials. Universities, health food stores, restaurants, and festivals are just a few popular locations to set up.

An exhibit is basically the unstaffed version of an information table. Libraries and student unions are popular locations for this type of event, which tends to have more of a visual thrust than an information table. Display materials, including books, can be kept under a protective glass cover, while handouts can be made available to passersby.

Retail Outreach

Retail outreach is a key component of the Meatout campaign, and it can range from very simple projects to very involved ones. Retail outreach involves encouraging supermarkets and restaurants to carry and promote more vegan foods. We strongly encourage activists to include retail outreach among their activities.

On the simpler end of things, you can set up a literature area, an information table, or other display at your local supermarket or restaurant to educate clientele and employees.

For a more direct impact, you can work with us to get more vegan items on the shelves of your local supermarket or on the menu of your favorite restaurant. In some cases, this can be as simple as filling out a product suggestion card. In other instances, you may need to develop a relationship with the management, provide samples, or stage a cooking demonstration. We are developing relationships on a national scale, but we need help on the local level.

Classroom Ideas

• Conduct a presentation or show a video about the benefits of a veg diet.
• Hang a poster, talk about the importance of veggies and hand out stickers. Register your plans with us and we'll send you the materials free.
• Offer vegan food samples during lunch; set up an information table with it, if possible.
• Hold an essay writing contest.

Lecture/Video Presentations

Lecture/Video Presentations require a qualified speaker, an informative and entertaining video and/or suitable materials. The location can be a classroom, student union, community center, church, or private home. Free food samples do a lot to boost audience size.

Our friends at Mercy for Animals have provided the Meatout campaign with free DVDs that we are offering to activists. Email us to request a copy of their new shocking film Farm to Fridge.

Help Us Get a Meatout Proclamation in Your City

Each year, Meatout urges governors and mayors across the U.S. to support a healthy, plant-based diet by officially proclaiming March 20th as the Great American Meatout. With your help, we can get a proclamation in your city and/or state. Participating is easy. Simply e-mail us with your name and contact information and we'll send in the request. Once we receive a copy of the proclamation for our files, you can keep it to put on display for your event or keep it as a souvenir.

Proclamations help bring media attention. Last year, Meatout received major media coverage following Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's proclamation signing. Animal exploiters across Michigan went to the press, calling it “insensitive” and “unconscionable” that Granholm suggest citizens try plant-based eating. Not missing a beat, FARM and supporters across the country countered with dozens of media interviews, over 150 published letters to the editor, and even a Meatout TV.

Click here to find out how to get a Meatout proclamation in your city or state!

Other Ideas & Themes:

Meatout Walks are fundraising events that support FARM's outreach and education efforts. Walks are generally 2 to 5 miles long and last 30 to 90 minutes. They can be large or small, simple or combined with other Meatout events. We encourage ambitious coordinators to give this event a try. Meatout T-shirts are provided to all registered walkers. Other prizes and incentives make this a rewarding way to celebrate Meatout!

Festivals or fairs combine elements of other types of events. More planning, promotion, and resources are needed for festivals, but they attract a lot of people and are really worth it! Common ingredients of a festival are musical entertainment, street theater, local celebrities, food samples, cooking demos, videos, and other attractive display and handout materials. As a way to create an attractive exhibit area and cover some of the costs of the lifestival, organizers may rents booths to local food retailers and health care providers. Typical locations are a public park or downtown plaza.

Support an Ongoing Campaign or Event

Take an action to support both Meatout and another organization's campaign. PETA's KFC Cruelty campaign is an obvious example, but also consider health fairs, pet festivals, art shows, and other veg-friendly venues.

Ads and Billboards

Ads and billboards send a powerful message to thousands. Individuals and organizations that wish to contribute money instead of or in addition to their time can sponsor newspaper ads or billboards. Artwork and technical instructions are available from FARM. For details, please contact us.

Selecting and Planning Your Event

When planning your Meatout event, there are seven goals you should try to meet:

1. Maximize the impact of your local event by making it a part of the national effort
2. Expose the largest number of people to the benefits of plant-based eating
3. Create a lasting positive experience for visitors
4. Generate positive media coverage for the residents of your community
5. Be sensitive to your community’s needs and interests
6. Complement the national theme and focus of Meatout
7. Be compatible with your group’s interests and resources

1. Register your event in our international database and take a look at our Suggested Action Plan.
2. Factors that influence the size of your audience include promotion, location, and draws.
• Effective promotion generally involves flyering, e-outreach, and taking advantage of local media. For details on this, see our page on Getting the Word Out.
• Location is another important factor. Depending on the type of event you are planning, your location should be easy to get to, attract a lot of foot traffic, and/or be a place that people in your area are familiar with. Remember, it is easier to conduct outreach at locations with that already have a crowd — such as churches, shopping malls, sporting events, and college campuses — than it is to create a crowd of your own. Other location-related considerations are any costs and permits associated with a given location.
• A draw is anything that gets people to come to your event. If you trying to create an audience of your own, you may want to consider inviting speakers, musicians, or local celebrities. Many are often willing to participate at no charge for nonprofit events such as Meatout. If you are trying to take advantage of an existing crowd, costumes, attractive displays, tents, and food samples can make a big difference.
3. To create a lasting positive experience, invite attendees to your group's next function and encourage them to sign up for Meatout Mondays, our e-newsletter that acts as a support system for new vegetarians and vegans.
4. Tips for getting the most out of your local media can be found in our Getting the Word Out section.
5. Being sensitive to your community's needs and interests means gearing your displays and handouts towards your community’s current dietary standards. You don't want your approach to be so radical or off-putting that your audience shuts down before you can open your mouth or hand them a pamphlet. A variety of display and handout materials are available from FARM, although you are certainly welcome to use your own or other organizations’ materials.
6. The Meatout motto is "kick the meat habit on March 20 (the first day of Spring), at least for a day, and explore a wholesome, nonviolent diet of vegetables, fruits, and grains." Our years of experience in promoting plant-based eating has taught us that increasing the availability and selection of vegan foods in mainstream supermarkets and restaurants is an extremely effective way of changing the ways of the public.
7. Finally, the nature and scope of the event must be compatible with your group’s interests and resources to ensure that you enjoy doing it and avoid burning out in the process.

Get your Meatout Gear!

Check out our merchandise page and order your Meatout t-shirts, posters, books, pins, and other fun stuff to have for the day of your event.

Meatout t-shirt! Sweatshop-free and organic, the shirt (moss green color) reads "Change Your Diet - Change the World - Live Vegan." Get yours today for $15. Supplies are limited! Place your order online or call us at 800-632-8688.