Victory Celebration at Safeway Shareholder Meeting

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

 

As most of you are aware, an eleventh hour change of heart by Safeway

corporation to embrace the improvements in animal welfare standards outlined

by PETA (please see http://www.shameway.com for more details), turned our

planned protest at Safeway's annual shareholder meeting into a victory

celebration.

 

This is a belated report-back from the inside & outside happenings at the

meeting last Thursday in San Ramon. OUTSIDE, over two dozen people showed up

for the victory celebration outside the meeting. Observing that there are

the same number of letters in " THANK YOU " as there are in " SHAMEWAY, " (thank

you, Lori P for that observation!) our Shameway cheerleaders became our

Victory cheerleaders. As well, we had three animal mascots (a cow, a pig,

and a chicken) and a line of celebratants (festively attired with party

hats, colorful leis, and party blowers). We toasted Safeway's

precedent-setting decision with non-alcoholic champagne, vegan chocolate

truffles, vegan pate on crackers, and donated yummy baked goods from Sparks.

All very lovely.

 

INSIDE the shareholder meeting, two of our friends/colleagues -- Bruce

Friedrich, Director of Vegan Outreach at PeTA, and local activist and writer

extraordinaire, Simone Spearman -- were able to attend the meeting as

proxies. Before the meeting began, Bruce approached Safeway CEO, Steve Burd,

who jovially received Bruce saying that he LOVED the cheerleaders and was

impressed with our presence. During the meeting, both Bruce & Simone were

able to approach the microphones and address the gathering. Both noted that

through the entire 3 hour meeting, the only enthusiastic and wide applause

was reserved for the speeches given by Bruce & Simone (I'll be posting

Bruce's statement in a subsequent email; sadly, I don't have a copy of

Simone's - if you do, Simone, would you like to post it?). Simone began her

statement by identifying herself as the mother of a toddler who loves

animals and a teacher of young children who feel a natural empathy for

animals. She launched into a wonderful speech that detailed some of the

cruelties of factory farming. While she described the horrors, she noted

people seated in front of her wincing visibly and expressing concern. Again,

at the conclusions of both speeches, there was applause from the entire

audience.

 

The media presence was good, but the coverage was even better. KPIX (channel

5) came out, and ran reports for their 4:30 (4?), 6:30 and 11 pm news shows.

The 6:30 pm coverage was particularly great. They showed generous clips from

PETA's undercover footage of Seaboard pig facility in Oklahoma, including

the segments on pigs being beaten, bashed, and thrown to the ground. One

aired segment showed a pig screaming in pain after his ear was " cropped "

(sic) for identification purposes. The coverage was very good, although the

gist of the report ( " Safeway responds to video by making changes " ) is

patently and absurdly false. Oy vey!! Contra Costa Times was also present,

along with Business Week. We've sent our photographs to PR Week.

 

On a humorous note, after the meeting ended, I walked into the Marriott to

meet up with Bruce & Simone. I was introduced to

Safeway VP, Brian Dowling, who made a delicious faux pas in saying that he'd

met me at the press conference launching PETA's boycott of Safeway. Safeway

hadn't been present at the February meeting, but they did send a man to

videotape the press conference undercover. After the press conference, the

videographer approached Bruce and said that he'd been sent by Safeway to

videotape the conference, but he wanted to register that his sympathies lay

entirely with PETA and the animals, and that he was revolted by what Safeway

was doing!

 

A million thanks are in order to so many people who contributed to the local

campaign, helping to secure a quick win in the international campaign. First

and foremost, thanks to Kelle Kacmarcik for doing such a brilliant job in

making the cheerleaders a reality. The KPIX coverage was entirely due to the

press releases sent out locally by the Food & Social Justice Project

trumpeting the Victory cheerleaders. Without the promise of the happy

cheerleaders, it's unlikely the station would have run the Seaboard factory

farming footage. A million thanks to Tammy & Chris for setting up the

wonderful community *and* the sfshameway mailing list, bringing the

local campaign into the 21st century and assisting phenomenally in helping

to get the message out as effectively and efficiently as possible. Thanks to

the initial cadre of brainstorming strategists: Pete C, Tammy, Chris, Rose

B, Melody O, Jay R, Nora K. Thanks to Polly Strand who knows that the best

parties are political and the best protests have parties. The Berkeley demo

was *amazing*, Polly! Thanks to Alfredo for offering wonderful insight on

how to secure our rights in defending the rights of nonhumans. Thanks to

everyone who came out to the weekly *socials*, with extra-special thanks to

Nora Kramer,

Adam-who-worked-at-Farm-Santuary-and-was-veggie-Jesus-at-a-Baptist-conferenc

e-but-whose-last-name-I-can't-remember, and Nancy Loewen for filling in for

me and taking responsibility for the demos when I was away (I am such a

lameass activist, calling weekly demos and then going away all the time!).

Thanks to everyone who came out to the shareholder celebration: our kickass

cheerleaders (Captain Kelle K, Pam W, Nora K, Rebecca J, Melody O, Rose B,

Debbie M, & Lori P); our wonderful animal mascots (Jay G, Carol B, Ron R),

photographer Lisa F, videographer Polly S, celebratants (and celebrities in

my mind) Jay R, Stephanie-in-the-present, Kris N-S, Thava A, Bob R, Bill E,

Denise, Madeline, Pam's writer friend, and the illustrious-and-ever-covert

RM.

 

I would love to take the momentum that we've built in this campaign and

funnel it into positive efforts to promote veganism in our community. I'll

be calling a strategy meeting in early June (tentatively thinking about

Thursday, June 6), and look forward to working with many of you then. In

particular, we have some ideas to do some video-based outreach (the " vegan

video brigade " , some food-based outreach (feed-ins

a-la-Compassion-Over-Killing), along with the regular fun that summer

tabling brings.

 

Hope everyone is doing well.

 

Cheering for the grassroots, for our community, and for the positive change

that working together can bring,

Alka