In Memory of Simpsons' Creator, Sam Simon

SAM SIMON
PHILANTHROPIST, SHELTER DIRECTOR, VEGAN
1955 - 2015

It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to Sam Simon, the critically acclaimed television writer, producer and director of Taxi, Cheers, The Tracey Ullman Show, The Drew Carey Show & The Simpsons, which he co-created. Simon was an animal lover through and through and a dedicated philanthropist, allotting his $100 million dollar fortune to charity. Since 2002, Sam funded the Sam Simon Foundation, an organization dedicated to rescuing and retraining stray dogs who would otherwise be euthanized. 

His dog shelter has been described as "the grandest... in the country," a 5-star, 6-acre campus in Malibu, California. The Foundation gives stray and abandoned dogs a new lease on life. As Simon explains, the foundation aims to "rescue dogs" and "train them to be service dogs, [to help] people with disabilities," primarily the deaf. It also provides a free mobile spay and neutering service for low-income guardians, free operations for ill canines, and trains pups to help soldiers returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan deal with PTSD.  

The Sam Simon Foundation Spay & Neuter Mobile Clinic.

In 2011 Simon established and self-funded the Sam Simon Foundation Feeding Families program, a vegan food bank which provides food for people and animals in need; the program helps feed some 200 families per day.

Sam passed away earlier this month after a two-year battle with cancer. His foundation will continue to help both people and animals and continue his legacy of compassion by operating on a plant-based policy. You are missed, Sam!

Thank you for giving us so much food for thought. We hope your work will inspire other shelters to consider going veggie too!

Veganism is an answer for almost every problem facing the world in terms of hunger and climate change.

- Sam Simon

Animal Welfare Groups May be Losing their Appetite for Meat

It's a situation that has left many an animal lover in a quandary.

You want to support your favorite shelter or rescue at its annual fundraiser. But the bill of fare for the evening is a carnivore's dream.

Saving animals is key to the organization's mission. Oh, and how would you like your prime rib cooked?

”I don't understand the thought behind serving meat at events,” says Kristen Gerali, founder of ALIVE Rescue in Chicago. “We are so passionate about saving animals. To serve animals at an event is just… I don't know, wrong.”

ALIVE, which Gerali founded in March 2008, doesn't serve meat at any of the five to seven events it holds each year. It never has. She made it part of the group's mission statement.

”(The policy) is well-received and people respect us for it,” she says.

Vegetarian and vegan menus are not always the case with other animal welfare organizations. But that may be changing.

Other groups around the country are taking a step back and re-evaluating the food they serve at fundraisers, adoption events, or even volunteer recognition luncheons. For some, the time has come to back up their talk of compassion toward animals with action. Meat is out, vegetarian and vegan alternatives are in.

”Over 90 percent of animals raised for food are raised in factory farms. When that information is shared people don't want to be part of that,” says Heather J. Cammisa, president and CEO of St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center in New Jersey. “We're relied upon to be a leader in animal welfare standards, so we have to be active.”

When Cammisa came to St. Hubert's in 2010, the 70-year-old organization was serving meat at its events. She had previously worked with other groups that went vegetarian, “and when I came here we started the discussion.”

Now, St. Hubert's is meatless.

”Our mission involves the humane treatment of animals, building an environment where people respect all living creatures,” Cammisa says. “And this aligns with that.”

The shelters don't need a lot of convincing if a 2013 survey of people who work or volunteer at California shelters and rescues is any indication. It found that 85 percent believed it was ethically inconsistent for an organization that rescues animals to sell or serve animal products. Still, only 29 percent had adopted a vegetarian or vegan policy.

Cammisa believes that some organizations fear a negative reaction from donors and supporters. That wasn't the case for St. Hubert's, though initially some people needed to be reassured.

"People came up to us, you know, ‘I thought you were telling me what I could eat in my home.’ But this is great,” she said. “It's about opening eyes.”

Before Gerali founded ALIVE, she was with another group that tried to implement a no-meat policy, but there was resistance.

”A lot of people say, ‘People are paying money, they'll expect meat.’ Or they are meat eaters themselves. It's a lifestyle. You don't see… the cruelty animals have to go through just to arrive on our plate. It isn't pretty. Maybe they didn't realize.”

Gerali says that she has had only one complaint since ALIVE was founded.

”The gentleman was a big-time meat eater,” she says. “‘Where's the meat?’ I told him it's just not something we support. It's cool too because it's sort of an educational tool without getting in their face. We offer the (vegetarian) options and they enjoy the flavor, and we hope they follow up.”

Shelters, rescues and other groups that are considering a policy change are getting help from Animal Place, a California-based farmed animal sanctuary. Through its “Food For Thought” program. Animal Place is awarding $25,000 in grants to animal organizations that institute a vegan policy. The group began accepting applications in February.

In addition, Animal Place also gives suggestions on how organizations can explain and adopt the policy and even offers plant-based menus and recipes.

”The time has come,” Cammisa says. “When it was all discussed and when we were putting together our policy—and that we’d be encouraging people to reduce the demand—there was discussion, ‘Will this offend people? Will this be considered fringe?’ It's like herding cats and it needs to be discussed.”

"It'd be such a disservice to the animals if we came late to the party advocating for these animals. We have to be in the forefront. We shouldn't be lagging messengers for this."

bhageman@tribpub.com
Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune

A Lesson From the Academics

HUMANE FOOD POLICIES TAKE ROOT 
IN ANIMAL STUDIES CONFERENCES

We’re here to talk about all sorts of things. And we’re going to see some things. And we’re going to hear some things. And we’re going to eat some things. No animals for the weekend though—we’ve gone all vegan because that is a powerful commitment to the lives of animals as animals and aslives that does not in any way, through any rationale, encroach upon their lively animacy. A welfare defense of using animals for food or other purposes still has at its core the claim that animal wellbeing matters—makes a difference beyond obligatory inter-human politicking. And so we want to be mindful of that claim on welfare and try on for size what welfare-all-the-way, beyond and after WELFARE, might look (and taste) like. 

Animal studies is the burgeoning new field in academia that looks at animals in a wide variety of cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary ways. Think: literature, cinema, history, art, the sciences, and other areas of study. The field is sometimes also known as Human-Animal Studies, Critical Animal Studies, or Anthrozoology. As minors, majors, and even master's programs are being created in this vein, so are conferences. 

And just what do you think these conferences might have on the menu for their hungry lifelong learners? Well in the case of the "All Things Great and Small" conference at the University of California - Davis, it was an all-vegan, four-day foodie extravaganza. Every morning featured a gourmet assortment of muffins and pastries. Lunch included soups, sandwiches, and fruit. As for break time—coffee and cake!

In his introductory welcome, conference organizer Ted Geier, put the event and the food offerings into context—

Welfare-all-the-way. We like the sound of that. Shouldn't animal shelters, humane societies, and rescue groups also try a ‘welfare-all-the-way’ approach? If the academics can do it, so can the welfare community. 

Conference attendees enjoy a day trip to PAWS sanctuary in Northern California, an organization that endorses the Food for Thought campaign and maintains a veg policy for their sponsored events. Photo credit: pawsweb.org.