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United
Way of LA Targets Vegetarians
Public
Enemies Number One, Two and Three:
United Way of Los Angeles spends thousands attacking vegetarians. Why?
On Wednesday, December 6, 2000, the United Way of LA Charities ran a half-page
ad on page A26 of the LA Times.
The ad read:
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EACH DAY, THEY FACE AN ENEMY MORE DEADLY THAN
INSECTS, RODENTS OR DROUGHT:
VEGETARIANS
Anybody can ask for your money, but the United
Way of Greater L.A. researches community needs to find the best
way to target resources. Like funding health services for 500,000
low income residents. We're closing the gap between the rich and
poor. Log on www.unitedwayla.org to give. We don't want donors.
We want investors.
Free the Asparagus. Call 1-800 Spear-Us
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Excuse me?
My wife and I are vegetarian, and our three kids (pictured above)
have been vegetarian from birth.
We know our kids are hard on furniture and clothes, but we had
no idea that they're "more deadly than insects, rodents or
drought!"
For some unknown reason, the United Way of LA has decided to start spending
the money it raises -- presumably for good works -- to target innocent
people (vegetarians) who have never thought about the United Way of LA
before today -- when we found out they consider our family Public
Enemy Number One.
Please join us in contacting the United Way of LA at:
United Way Los Angeles
523 West Sixth Street
Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213) 630-2100
and tell them that you're telling your friends and family not to
donate to the United Way of LA because they're obviously off their rockers,
and can't be trusted with managing donations.
They also have a toll free 800 number where you may ask questions
and share your opinion on their outrageous ad:
United Way Los Angeles: 800 339-6993 (may only work from California -- use 213 number if it doesn't work)
I called this number and the operator who took my call expressed
disbelief when I read her the ad.
Start calling today, and spread the word that a charity which raises
money in order to target innocent people should not be getting any
more money from anyone.
Is the United Way trying to make a point that by donating to an
organization that supports plant-based eating, you are throwing
your money away? I can only speculate as to why they'd do something
so twisted.
If you visit their website, you can watch a video which tries to
enlarge the idea of their new "campaign." The video starts
out with these quacks singing "free the asparagus," and
then on to their video about how they (United Way of LA) are REALLY helping people (unlike
other charities), and at the end they go back to the asparagus shot
and they say "so before you give your money to just anybody...give
it to us because we're actually helping people." The implication
is that United Way is doing SO much more than environmental or animal
charities, and the United Way is obviously unhappy that people are
donating to such charities rather than to them. To see this cheap
shot video, go to:
http://www.unitedwayla.org/pages/campaignvid/Campaignvid.html
Judging from the video, it seems to be a negative campaign they're
launching, spending tens of thousands of advertising dollars attempting
to disparage other charitable orgs and implying that outfits like
PETA, EarthSave, Greenpeace and others are a bunch of idiots, and
you shouldn't donate to them but to United Way.
Our advice would be: if you choose to donate through United Way
at all, donate only money directly to a given charity you want to
support, and make sure that none of your money goes to United Way
itself, since they apparently have chosen to spend money they get
trying to disparage other non-profits. Give your money to organizations where it counts, not to a place like United Way which will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of their resources attacking other non-profits. That doesn't feed the hungry or home the homeless.
If anyone finds out any more about this bizarre situation, please
let us know by dropping an email to: webwizard@vegsource.com
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