(Letter composed by Diana Artemis) Is Your Church/Community Group Having a "Chicken" Dinner, "Pig" Roast... If your church, community or fraternal group is eating animals to "celebrate" an event or reunion, don't despair. Send them a note, in your own words (and perhaps include a piece of literature that's not too inflammatory) and request they substitute a vegan meal, or plan next year's event without meat. As a sample, I've attached a letter I just wrote to the Director of an "Annual Chicken Dinner Festival" at a church retreat center I sometimes visit. (Take out the "God" references if it's not appropriate to your situation!) Dear      : It was with great sadness that I read of the [description of event, for example, Chicken Dinner, Pig Roast, Roast Beef dinner]. As a fellow [Catholic/Protestant/Rotarian/Cub Scout/PTA Member/Etc.], I hope we can broaden our compassion to include all sentient beings who possess intelligence and a psychology of their own, remarkable in both their differences and similarities to our own. As such, I respectfully ask you to celebrate next year's event with a meal that does no harm to human health, the environment, or any member of God's creation. Consider the following facts: * Of all agricultural land in the U.S., 87% is used to raise animals for food: that equates to 45% of the total land mass in the U.S. * More than half of all the water consumed in the U.S. for all purposes is used to raise animals for food. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. A totally vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. * Raising animals for food causes more water pollution in the U.S. than any other industry because animals raised for food produce 130 times the excrement of the entire human population: 87,000 pounds per second! Much of the waste from factory farms and slaughterhouses flows into streams and rivers, contaminating water sources. * Each vegetarian saves acre of trees every year! More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow crops to feed animals raised for meat, and another acre of trees disappears every eight seconds. The tropical rain forests are also being destroyed to create grazing land for cattle. 55 square feet of rain forest may be destroyed to produce just one quarter-pound burger. Apart from the devastation wreaked upon our health and the environment by consuming animals, as compassionate people, can we continue to live our lives ignoring the suffering our lifestyle choices impose upon other thinking, emotional beings? Is it moral to "grow" conscious, sentient beings; with maternal instincts to nurse their young and play and exercise in the sun, as cabbages; packed together in cages or crates too small to stretch their limbs or lie down? To separate calves and piglets from their mothers at birth so they can be sold to vivisectionists or ground into hamburgers and pate, which we, in turn, consume only to drive up our cholesterol and weight? I respectfully ask you to consider my request and discuss this with others at [name of organization holding this event]. I respectfully request you to go meat-free, and proclaim why, at next year's event. Sincerely, [Your Name] [Your address - optional]