When I was 14-years old, I was the only vegan teenager I knew. While trying to find others online, I became frustrated to see people promoting and repeating advice and viewpoints that are counterproductive to the movement. For example, I saw one adult vegan tell teenagers in his Facebook group that they do not need to worry about obtaining adequate Vitamin B12.
Not only is health advice like that rampant online, but the attitudes and advocacy advice often is just as bad. Assuming non-vegans are awful people and treating them that way, to the point of even wishing them harm, is not going to help our movement grow. I wanted to see a website where I could connect with vegans my own age, while at the same time getting high-quality advice and support targeted to my perspective as a teenager. I couldn’t find one, so I decided to create it: www.veganteen.net
For years, I have collected stories on my website from vegan teenagers around the world, as well as written answers based on real questions from teenagers who have contacted me … I realized early on in creating my website that I was not qualified to answer all the questions other teenagers asked me, so I found some adults to act as advisors.
One challenge I’ve faced is that most people in Generation Z do not want to read much. I can spend countless hours preparing a balanced blog article…but someone in a YouTube video will get infinitely more attention making incendiary statements. So I have had to console myself with the fact that there’s now a website with high-quality advice for vegan and vegan-interested teenagers who want it.
A final challenge is how I have spent a lot of time since age 14 answering every single question I have received from vegan- and vegan-interested teens through email and social media. One of my peer advisors recommended starting a mentor program in hopes of staying in better contact with people who reach for help, so I made one. Two vegan teens besides myself have volunteered to serve as mentors (though unfortunately people who ask to join don’t always follow up)…Obtaining the #1 Google ranking for my website veganteen.net took years of work creating content and optimizing my website for search rankings.
Someone who reached out to me is Ameliarose Allen, a musician my age, who asked to represent VeganTeen at Hudson Valley VegFest and other events once or twice a year. She has represented Vegan Teen for a couple of years now and provides free stickers and such with our logo at her performances.
My biggest achievement so far is co-authoring Veganism and Perspective in Vegetarianism and Veganism: A Reference Handbook, which was published in June 2019. David E. Newton invited me to contribute as an author to this edition of his Contemporary World Issues series, published by ABC-CLIO of Santa Barbara…I asked another vegan teenager to co-author, because I know he’s an environmental science major.
In March 2019, I represented my age group as a non-profit educational table at Nashville’s VegFest…One of the members of my VeganTeen Facebook group came up for the day from Alabama. A lot of the teenagers at VegFest were not vegan, and I hope we encouraged them to move in that direction. Another local activity I have participated in is the Cube of Truth…I became encouraged to participate in these events when I attended Youth Empowered Activist Camp in the summer of 2018.
I now understand that, sometimes, if I don’t do it, no one else will…The best illustration of this realization’s effect on me is that I started my school’s first environmentalism club in Fall 2018…What I am proudest of is our Earth Day education event encouraging students to use an online personal environmental impact calculator. Many students participated, and one of the key entries in the calculator was meat consumption.
I have searched several scholarship lists and see this one listed a lot; it is one of the most generous on every list. I think this scholarship helps get my generation thinking about vegetarianism even more than they are already and associating it with something positive.
My perfect life in 5 years would be studying as a medical student at a prestigious medical school. I would like to become a type of physician who counsels people to avoid animal products daily. However, I am also extremely interested in the promise of computer simulations and organ-on-a-chip technology to create more reliable alternatives to animal testing in chemical and pharmaceutical development.
February 20, 2021 is the deadline for the next Vegetarian Resource Group college scholarship awards for graduating high school seniors. For information on other scholarship winners or scholarship applications, see: https://www.vrg.org/student/scholar.htm
BRANDON
By Anna Sherwood, 2020 Vegetarian Scholarship winner
“Hi Brandon*! Care if I sit here? Every day at lunch, I’d seen Brandon sitting alone at a circular table on the cafeteria’s edge. “Uh, yeah, I guess,” he said. The obvious fact hit me: Because he’s blind, Brandon didn’t recognize me as one of the attendees of his Blind Experience club’s first meeting. I sat down, introduced myself and made small talk, but Brandon was reserved and unfamiliar with regular teenage lingo. I felt empathy towards Brandon and glad to have an excuse to sit with him; now, I wasn’t sure he wanted my company.
The Blind Experience club’s unofficial purpose is to help Brandon, the school’s only blind student, make friends, so I didn’t give up. After many awkward lunches together, Brandon eventually revealed his jocular, bold, and sarcastic personality. He also opened up about his difficult home life and obstacles at school. As Brandon came out of his shell, I began stepping out of my comfort zone and growing as a person. Overcoming self-consciousness, I helped Brandon navigate between classes. I pushed through social anxiety to encourage people to attend the club and sit with us at lunch. After being tearfully frustrated when most of my friends wouldn’t attend meetings or get to know Brandon, I branched out to the people who did, including those I wasn’t sure I’d have something in common with.
By the school’s end, Brandon and I had changed each other’s lives. He had become one of my best friends, and we both had made new friends through the Blind Experience. We were calling and texting one another frequently, often in a group with other club members, and I’d thrown him a well-attended birthday party. About a dozen members were coming regularly to the Blind Experience.
My success in improving Brandon’s situation and its positive effects on my own life inspired me to attend an activism camp the following summer. Since age 15, I’ve worked fairly anonymously with people to make the world a better place through my website for other vegan and vegan-interested teenagers. However, I’d been too socially fearful to advocate on behalf of people or causes in regular life. Because of Brandon and activism camp, these fears no longer hold me back.
I wish I could say Brandon and I lived happily ever after, but my family moved away that summer. The same month, our good friend, one of the club’s most loyal members and the kindest person I’ve ever known, passed away. The Blind Experience still meets, but our group chats have gone silent. And, in a school of 3,000 students, Brandon is sitting alone at lunch again. I now understand that, sometimes, if I don’t do it, no one else will.
* Name changed to protect privacy.
Don’t forget: February 20, 2021 is the deadline for our next college scholarship awards for graduating high school seniors. For information on other scholarship winners or scholarship applications, see: https://www.vrg.org/student/scholar.htm