Jasmin (left) and Mariann (right); Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur
Dear Chickens,
With the holiday season upon us, the Our Hen House team is counting our blessings. Our loyal supporters have been extremely generous during our Donor Challenge, and we’re so grateful to have you, our listeners and readers, in our corner.
We hope you’ll join us in changing the world for animals, and will consider Our Hen House in your end of year giving. If you have yet to donate — don’t worry! — there’s still time to make your tax-deductible gift! The Donor Challenge is still in full swing until December 31, and all gifts will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $10,000, by our incredible Barnyard Benefactors. As always, we offer amazing thank you gifts in exchange for your donations.
There were so many milestones for us in 2013, and if you’re a regular listener and/or reader, you are already well aware of many of them. To name but a few highlights, we recently celebrated our 200th consecutive weekly podcast episode! Some favorite podcast guests from this past year have included Emily Deschanel, Steve-O, and John Salley. We have also recently started offering podcast transcriptions. The Our Hen House Online Magazine, which, thanks to your support, we launched last year, has really spread its wings this past year, consistently producing new material each day, and growing our presence as the go-to source for vegan and animal rights news, reviews, and feature articles. Our public appearances have also grown, including two appearances on the evening news (the second one was a debate with the Virginia Farm Bureau), an appearance alongside Tippi Hedren on HuffPo Live, and an appearance on Brooklyn Indie Media’s BKLive, where we discussed vegan Thanksgiving. As for live appearances, most recently we gave our newest talk, “Fed Up? A New Way to Feed Your Body, Your Soul, and the World” at the Albany VegFest. Some of our other favorite public appearances this year were at NYC’s The Seed, Virginia’s Vegan Night Out, Mary Baldwin College, Portland’s Vida Vegan Con, and Bands for Bears – a concert we emceed in NYC benefiting Animals Asia. In addition to writing for Our Hen House, Jasmin was also busy writing for other venues, publishing a chapter in Lantern Books’ anthology, Defiant Daughters: 21 Women on Art, Activism, Animals, and the Sexual Politics of Meat, and she enjoyed being part of book readings in NYC and New Paltz. Excitingly, the royalties made from Defiant Daughters is benefiting Our Hen House! Jasmin has also been contributing a regular column to The Huffington Post. Meanwhile, Mariann was honored to be included in the current issue of the Animal Law Review, and she kept busy teaching Animal Law and Farmed Animal Law as an adjunct professor at Columbia University, Cardozo Law School, and NYU Law School.
None of this would have happened without your support. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Our Hen House is reader- and listener-supported, and we would not be able to change the world for animals without your help. Please make a donation today so that Our Hen House can continue to be an independent multimedia hub of opportunities to do just that – to change the world for animals. Donate today at www.ourhenhouse.org.
2014 has so much in store already. To spill the beans just a bit: We are developing an e-book publishing arm; we are in post-production for a web TV series; we are working on a second podcast that will effectively bridge the gap between our online magazine and our “radio” presence; and, though it’s just a bit too early to talk about this completely, let’s just say that the boob tube might not be so far away… (Egad!!!!)
This past year, our podcast was named an Official Honoree by the coveted Webby Awards, alongside greats such as Scientific American and Discovery. We are on a roll, we believe, but we absolutely cannot do it without your support. We thank you from the bottom of our hen hearts for supporting us thus far and for making our online magazine come to fruition. 2014 will undoubtedly be our best year yet.
Join our flock today and join us in making a major impact for the animals.
With love,
Jasmin, Mariann, and the rest of the Our Hen House team