Vegan Teacher - Please support!

A recent story in the media about a teacher who has been suspended from his classes for encouraging students to learn about Veganism. I will repeat, suspended for encouraging students to learn. Please help make sure this doesn't stand, read on to find out how. Just copy & send the letters below the news articles.

Background story from: the Daily Herald

Fox River Grove Middle School art teacher Dave Warwak has been suspended with pay for urging school officials and students to learn more about veganism.

Warwak said he received a letter from the school district on Thursday instructing him to stay away from school grounds "except to return (school) materials to the district office."

The brief letter does not mention the length of Warwak's suspension or how officials plan to handle his future tenure with the school district.

The letter also makes no explicit mention of pay. Warwak said he was told by school officials he would be suspended with pay.

"I had my check deposited last night, so they're still paying me," Warwak said. "This letter is their way of saying, 'We're in control.' Now they're looking at ways to defend themselves or smear me, and they're coming up empty on both fronts."

Tim Mahaffy, the school's principal, confirmed Warwak is still an employee of the district, and the school district is conducting an "investigation" into Warwak's tenure. Mahaffy declined to comment further on the art teacher's tenure.

Warwak threatened to sue school officials earlier this week after he was removed from his classroom for teaching his students about the benefits of a vegan lifestyle.

The dispute between Warwak and school officials stemmed from concerns Warwak had with lunchroom posters promoting the health benefits of drinking milk.

Warwak, who excludes all animal products from his diet, said he urged school officials to remove the posters because he believed it promoted an unhealthy dietary choice.

Warwak told school officials on Monday that unless the middle school served exclusively vegan lunches, which contain no animal products, he would pursue a case against the school for violation of the Illinois school code.


Another story from Fox News

Dave Warwak has been a teacher at Fox River Grove Middle School for eight years.

The 44-year-old became a vegan in January and believes the school is "feeding poison" to students. He also believes the school's posters featuring milk are wrong.

Warwak won't return until the posters are removed, he said. He's looked into filing child-endangerment charges because he claims it's wrong to promote animal products as part of healthy diet.

Warwak was asked to leave the school last week because he talked about animal-cruelty issues, he said.

The school's superintendent, Jacqueline Krause, said Warwak wasn't fired.

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Teacher Info:
Name: Dave Warwak
City of residence: Williams Bay, WI
Dave@inslide.comEmail Dave here




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Support Mr. Warwak by sending the following letters to him and to the media

Thank you letter to Dave Warwak

Dear Mr. Warwak,

I am sending you this letter of gratitude for your recently taking a stand to educate children about the various positive reasons for considering Veganism as a lifestyle. It is a special, if rare, occurrence to see in the mainstream media someone who is passionate and well versed about this issue. It's great to see others covering such realities as the truth about factory farming, animal agriculture, the ensuing environmental destruction, and the stripping of compassion from the hearts of our citizens, especially children.

I support your motion to shed light on the facts about living compassionately. While there are many reasons to go Veg, the horrible and cruel conditions of the so-called animal 'production' industry are the closest ones to the hearts of children.

I encourage you to continue to speak out whenever possible. And to continue use the current wave of attention to tactfully communicate the shared position of those who have been enlightened about these issues.

Kind regards,
(Your Name)



School Name: Fox River Grove Middle School
Email the school principal & superindendent, Tim Mahaffy & Dr. Jackie Krause


Letter to the School Principal

Dear Mr. Mahaffy,

On behalf of concerned citizens, I'm writing to express concern over the recent disciplinary actions taken against Dave Warwak, an art teacher at your school. According to news reports, Mr. Warwak was disciplined for informing children about the cruelty of the meat industry and the enormous health benefits of going vegetarian.

It's a sad day when a teacher is punished for telling students the truth: that by going vegetarian, they will dramatically improve their health while saving animals from cruelty so extreme that it would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals charges in the state of Illinois if the victims were dogs and cats rather than chickens, pigs, and cows. In a time of growing violence in schools, a teacher who is bringing a message of compassion should be applauded, not punished. Students in every school should have teachers like Mr. Warwak to tell them that the "chicken nuggets" they consume in the cafeteria were once living, breathing animals who were crammed into filthy sheds and pumped full of drugs before having their throats slit while they're still conscious.

Mr. Warwak was also apparently distributing copies of John Robbins' book The Food Revolution, which documents not only the cruelty of the meat industry but also the environmental and health benefits of a vegetarian diet. In these days of skyrocketing childhood obesity, we hope that Mr. Warwak's students will take the book's message to heart: According to the American Dietetic Association, a vegan diet is appropriate for all ages and vegans have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity than meat-eaters do.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)

(Credit to Bruce Friedrich for the letter to T. Mahaffy)

Also watch these news videos:
FOX News Video

And this WGN Interview from Youtube (first 45 seconds)


To summarize: Although Mr. Warwak may not be the best candidate for a vegan media campaign, given his very passionate methods of speaking his mind, I hope folks will see through the tactics to the issues. I feel the core problem is our educational system partnering with animal agriculture and thereby creating less healthy children who are more detached from other living beings.

Thanks from VegSarasota!

VeganTeachers.com will be coming soon!

Free Stuff Here! + Party!

VegSRQ In L.A. pt 2


So after our mind-blowing vegan meal, we went straight on over to the Beverly Hills Hotel to meet up with The Gala organizers and volunteers. We ended up diving right in to help stuff bags upon bags upon bags (500 in all) with all kinds of vegan goodies. There literally was a room full of donated magazines, cookbooks, body products, wearables, candies, cookies, and other food products. To help you get the schwag vibe, here's a couple of pictures of the assembly line process.

Here is the room full of goodies as was delivered.


And a shot of some really great cookies donated by Liz Lovely. Check out this great company that supports independent groups like VegSarasota and big organizations like Farm Sanctuary


Here's one of the workers smiling as she goes (she's pretty cute eh?)


And 4 hours later, the room full of the finished product!


The group of great volunteers and organizers, ready for the big party.



All in all it was a crazy, hectic, and fun process. The volunteers were all working very hard to make things go as smoothly as possible, but everyone was still enjoying the teamwork. I guess it helps keep people smiling when your in a room full of free stuff - sorta feels like a shopping spree, but one where you get to give away all the stuff.

All that bag-stuffing action made us a bit hungry again, so we decided to head over to a little place called 'The Vegan Joint'. I'm pretty sure they call it that because whenever you go there you have to get 'rolled' - right out the door cause you're so full. The dinner was great Thai food, fresh spring rolls, mushroom soup, red curry, and brown rice. They also had a tasty looking breakfast menu so we went there for breakfast the next day for their tropical pancakes & country style hash browns.



The following day was the Gala itself. It was an amazingly well organized production of stars, speakers, awards, and entertainment held at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Dill & were asked to be celebrity handlers, so as part of the VIP/Press reception we generally helped out and watched over things. I was glad to meet Daniela Sea from Showtime's "The L-Word" (pictured below). Also, glad to run into our friend Paul Shapiro(pictured below), founder of Compassion Over Killing, and currently doing great things over at the Humane Society of the US. Other attendees included (among others) U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, Loretta Swit, Nancy Sinatra, David Silverman, Maggie Q, Jennifer Coolidge, Alicia Silverstone, and the evenings hostess, Emily Deschanel. I'm sure that Farm Sanctuary will soon update their 2007 Gala Page with photos and a much better recap of the event than I could spit out. And since you're getting winded reading this already, I'll try and wrap it up.





The next morning, we were fortunate enough to be invited to pop in on a brunch (which went from 11a-5pm) at the home of one of the movement's great activists, Karen Dawn. Our pals Dan Piraro & his wife Ashley Smith (also phoenomenal activists) invited us and proved to be great conversation (the Mimosa's may have helped). Also I was glad to chat with Laban Pheidias, an extremely smart ex-pro skater with a couple of shows on the Fuel Network.



That's Dill & Dan. Isn't that setting gorgeous? It's on the terrace of the lovely and talented Karen Dawn of Dawnwatch.com, who was gracious enough to host a delicious vegan brunch a a gaggle of Farm Sanctuary 2007 Gala attendees. Quack Quack.

That concludes this chapter, I'll try and get back with a quick post covering some of the other great restaurants we ate at.

VegSarasota in Los Angeles

Dill & I were glad to be able to get to Los Angeles the weekend of Sep. 8th '07 for the 2007 Farm Sanctuary Gala.

First thing we did when we got off the plane was to go downtown to a highly recommended restaurant called 'Real Food Daily'. Yes, the chance at tasty vegan food - sans begging waiters to make special accommodations - is that appealing as to make it priority numero uno :)



Once we got there, we had a short wait until they opened at 11am, so we scanned the menu outside. Strangely (or so I thought) there were about 10 people waiting by the time they opened the doors. It's rare to see a dedicated group of people hoovering about as the wait staff scurries about inside like Target employees prpepping for the Playstation 3 release. Oh, so back to the food - Things like "Scrambled tofu with onions, tomatoes and cashew cheddar cheese, two pancakes or French toast, tempeh bacon & hash browns" and "Tortilla filled with scrambled tofu, onions and peppers, guacamole & pico de gallo, topped w/ ranchero sauce & melted cashew cheddar cheese w/ hash browns or fruit" caught my eye, but alas, it was Friday and that was the Sunday Brunch menu. So we turned our attention to the rest of the huge menu. Dill decided to go with the monthly special, entitled 'French Connection' which was roasted polenta with walnut pesto tofu cheese, vegetables and portabella mushrooms on a saffron fennel tomato coulis w/ grilled vegetables. I opted for the 'RFD Burger' Tempeh vegetable patty, grilled onions, rustic roll, onions. lettuce, tomato" w/the works which added "avocado, tempeh bacon, cashew cheese.

The portions were huge, each coming with a side. Needless to say we were stuffed, but' thankfully the lattes we ordered magically created room for us to share a 'Coconut Moon Pie'. Which, upon tasting, caused my storage of endorphins to be dumped directly into my blood stream. This tasty delight was cool on the pallette, totally succulent, fluffy, and sweet but not too rich. Knowing that an innocent animal didn't have to spend days in a confined cage or be hooked up to a machine to make this dessert made my heart feel as good as my taste buds. I barely hesitate to admit that this tasty treat alone was reason enough for us to buy the RFD Cookbook:




















In order to not make this one huge entry, I'm going to break up the adventure into distinct areas of significance - so stay tuned for our "Fun with Freebies".

Yahoo! News Links Meat & Climate Change

Yahoo News! Actually had on their home page an article linking climate change & meat consumption.

While the story does make it sound like this news is hot-off-the-press, which it's not, at least they're covering it and publishing yet another mainstream account of the facts behind factory farming.


"If people knew that they were threatening the environment by eating more meat, they might think twice before ordering a burger," Brewster said.

Other ways of reducing greenhouse gases from farming practices, like feeding animals higher-quality grains, would only have a limited impact on cutting emissions. Gases from animals destined for dinner plates account for nearly a quarter of all emissions worldwide.

"That leaves reducing demand for meat as the only real option," said Dr. John Powles, a public health expert at Cambridge University, one of the study's authors.

The only disappointing quote was from Dr. Maria Neira of the WHO - implying that this "theory" is brand new and uncertain. I guess she doesn't pay attention to things like the United Nations or even the Huffington Post both of whom who have already acknowledged this undeniable link.

By the time I could even draft this short blog the story got bumped from the home page. So if you have a yahoo login, please rate this story 5 stars so that it will stay at the top of the list!