I once found a roommate on Craigslist. Turns out we lived together perfectly, and, even years after the apartment moved on to house its next tenants, Rachel and I remain friends to this today. Through Craigslist, I’ve also scored a nightstand, filing cabinet, and, in my single days, a few dates.
Craigslist is a powerful place, and don’t I know it. Activist Darius Fullmer knows it too, which is why he decided to tell us all about Take 5 Save 5 — which is perhaps the most genius grassroots effort I’ve heard of this year. By posting ads to the “Free Stuff” section of Craigslist offering free vegetarian starter kits, like Darius, you will soon be deluged with people coming to you for information on going vegan. Genius.
Take 5 Save 5 even makes the already insanely easy process ridiculously easy, by offering a semi-automatic way of managing the whole thing. According to a guest blog that Darius wrote over at FoodFight’s blog:
The entire process of posting an offer takes just a couple minutes. First hit the “Pick Me A Craigslist” button and you will be directed to a listing from somewhere in the country. You will need a Craigslist account to post. If you don’t aleady have one, don’t worry. It’s free and takes only minutes to set up. You’ll be glad you did.
There is sample text for the subject line and body of the ad on the Take5Save5.com page. You can cut and copy from there if you want. Or, just make up slightly different variations. For the subject, you could use…
Vegetarian Starter Kit booklet
Free Vegetarian Starter Kit Booklets!
Vegetarian Info & Recipe Booklets…or a million other variations. Changing it up a little is important because if you try to post multiple listings, Craigslist will block the repeat post. But minor changes will allow you to post as many listings as you want. The same goes for the body.
As a bonus, I like to include a picture, as it draws more attention to the posting. For ideas, just put “vegetarian” into Google Images. Try a few different ones and see what gets the best response.
Once you have posted your ad the fun begins. Requests for booklets will start popping up in your inbox. After years of trying to give out information on veganism to people, what an awesome feeling to have them coming to you!
You don’t need to send them anything yourself. Remember, I promised it wouldn’t cost you a cent. Just go back to the Take5Save5.com website and hit the “Click Here to Enter Past Orders” button. Then simply cut and paste their name and address into the fields provided, and magical vegan elves in the North Pole will mail them one. (I’m not sure where they actually come from, but I like to think that it’s elves.)
Easy? Yes. Effective? Yupper!
Even if you’ve never had the roommate/nightstand/date experience that I’ve had with Craigslist, Take 5 Save 5 should give you a whole new perspective on the power of Craigslist. There is seriously no excuse to not do this.
Photo: Courtesy Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, photo by Derek Goodwin