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Florida Student Marlie Adams Wins $500 VRG College Scholarship
"I was born vegan, so I really had no option. However, many of my friends who were also vegan since birth are no longer vegan, which deeply saddens me," Marlie said. "I chose to stay vegan because my grandma is a Holocaust survivor and the images she described parallel with what happens to animals for food. I see the sadness in my grandmother's eyes when she tells the stories."
While growing up Marlie attended dozens of protests. At 6 years old, she brought vegan snacks to school events for kids to try. Marlie was The Ravens Corps' first Lead Raven in Florida. Following the onset of the pandemic, when activities were forced online, Marlie stepped up to be a guiding force for their virtual community, launching The Animal Protection Corner, a space for youth to convene, collaborate, and organize over a shared interest in animal rights and activism.
Marlie used her video skills to produce videos for Jonathan Balcombe (author of What a Fish Knows), Crustacean Liberation, and a promotion for vegan restaurant Umami Gorilla. As a mentor for Vegan Outreach, she takes students to stores, shows them vegan options, and gives them ideas for meals. She has written a book about fish for young children, and is now working on the illustrations.
In the future Marlie hopes to use a film degree to make people more aware of the horrors that billions of animals go through for people to eat. Her perfect life in five years would be to start working on an exposé film of the animal agriculture industry. She hopes for a world where everyone is kind, compassionate, and vegan (of course).
For information on other winners and applying for the next Vegetarian Resource Group college scholarship contest with $20,000 in awards, see: www.vrg.org/student/scholar.htm The deadline for this year's contest is February 20, 2022.
To support VRG scholarships and internships, donate at www.vrg.org/donate or call (410) 366-8343.
