by Sarah Herring

Sarah Herring, CreatureKind Climate Fellow.jpeg

As the finals week and thesis deadlines loom closely on the horizon, I am struck by how much has already been accomplished on Eastern University’s campus.

This semester, I undertook a project to increase awareness surrounding a vegan lifestyle on my campus. I started the year by making an important connection with a fellow undergraduate. Claire, although not vegan, shares a passion with me for sustainability and environmental protection. Together, we were able to start a new club at Eastern this semester called “Student Association for Sustainability” (S.A.S. for short…cute right?).

As Claire and I worked together, we had extensive dialogue about the vegan diet and its advantages when trying to live both an environmentally sustainable and ethically Christian lifestyle. We decided that advocating for a vegan lifestyle should be a big part of our club’s platform as it fully encapsulates the ethics of compassion, love, and stewardship that we want to embody as Christians. Claire also decided to transition to a fully vegan lifestyle, so now our club will be led by two powerful, vegan women!

Another big change that is in the works is shifting the menu in Eastern’s dining commons. The university has a contract with Sodexo. As a company, Sodexo has a lot of great resources for plant-based eating, including a menu containing 50% vegan meals. However, much to the dismay of students at Eastern, our dining commons has not implemented this menu. Instead, we are served meals lacking nutrient dense, plant-based options. Through Sarah and CreatureKind, I was able to contact Kate at Forward Food, who has come alongside our community to persuade our dining services to implement the already available Sodexo menu. We have both been in contact with Eastern’s executive chef and the regional Sodexo representative and we are hopeful that we will start to see changes as soon as the beginning of next semester!

Overall, I have been so encouraged by the interest and dedication of students at Eastern—so many individuals are making the choice to live a vegan lifestyle even with the difficulties that come with eating on campus. Seeing so many people make the connection between the way we treat animals and our calling as Christians to love all beings has ministered to me and fueled me to continue to work for even greater change in the Spring semester!

We’ve spent a lot of time on college campuses recently and met so many compassionate, intelligent students with a heart for affecting positive change on a global scale. One of our primary takeaways from these weeks spent on the road is this: we are confident that the future is in good hands. Students are increasingly excited about the intersection of faith and food.

CreatureKind has always supported students who want to have critical conversations about this topic in their schools and churches, and a new partnership with Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA) helps us do that better than ever. We’re thrilled to announce that applications are now being accepted for the new CreatureKind Climate Leadership Fellow program.

The student selected to serve as the CreatureKind Climate Leadership Fellow will learn to lead faith-based discussions about the wellbeing of animals used for food and factory farming’s environmental impact. Working together with experienced YECA organizers, CreatureKind, and other mentors, the CreatureKind Climate Leadership Fellow will invest approximately 10 hours each week on work developing a strategy and specific project for engaging their campus/community around issues related to farmed animals and climate action.

Oh, and did we mention that the fellowship includes a $1,000 stipend for project support and related travel expenses?

YECA is an experienced fellowship partner with five years of experience supporting this sort of student opportunity. In 2018-2019 there are seven fellows from across the country, representing a variety of majors. Some of them are even using the experience to meet internship or other academic requirements for graduation. The 2019-2020 fellowships begin with a training retreat in August and run through April of the following year.

Learn more about the Fellows program and apply for the 2019-2020 CreatureKind Climate Leaders Fellowship by visiting these links on YECA’s website. Application deadline is March 30, 2019. Remember to indicate that you are interested specifically in the CreatureKind Fellowship when completing the forms.

We deeply appreciate all students with a heart for this work. Best of luck in the application process!