For Immediate Release:
June 27, 2017
Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382
Detroit – From Seattle to Massachusetts (and just about everywhere in between), music fans are flocking to the Vans Warped Tour, where they’ll see not only artists like Andy Black, Hawthorne Heights, and Falling in Reverse—but also Sterling Heights native Sarah Merrifield, who’s on the tour crew for peta2, PETA’s youth division—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat.”
In dozens of cities this summer, Merrifield will help run peta2’s “Not Your Mom, Not Your Milk” booth, which uses interactive games, stickers, wristbands, and more to challenge visitors to consider why it’s as unnatural for humans to drink cows’ milk as it is for cats to drink giraffes’ milk—and why it’s cruel to tear calves away from their mothers so that humans can drink their milk instead.
Merrifield, a fashion merchandising and Spanish major at Central Michigan University, could share how she started researching ways to help animals shortly after she went vegan. With peta2’s help, she prompted her school’s cafeteria to start offering plant-based milk, yogurt, butter, cookies, cheese, soup, and other foods. Her club, Student Advocates for Vegetarianism/Veganism, has screened the animal rights documentary Earthlings for students, volunteered at a nearby farmed-animal sanctuary, organized a vegan Thanksgiving potluck, and more.
