The Drexel Humane League has only been on campus for a month, but it’s already participating in a global campaign that betters the health of people and the planet — Meatless Mondays.
Kelsey Omeis is the president and founder of the Drexel Humane League, a campus branch of the national nonprofit association launched to fight animal cruelty on factory farms. She played a large role in introducing a one-day-a-week-without-meat initiative to campus, which 62 students had pledged to join as of Oct. 18.
Meatless Monday is an organized effort to encourage people to cut down on meat consumption and recognize the holistic effects of going meatless for one day a week. It helps save animal lives and raise awareness about animal cruelty.
“A lot of people think that you have to be a vegetarian or vegan to make a difference, but that’s not true. If everyone went meatless [once a week], we would be saving thousands of animals every single week, which makes a huge impact,” she said.
Omeis believes that with more participants, the bigger the opportunity is for people to be aware of the cruelty and killing happening to animals.
“Meatless Monday is just one way to reach a large amount of people. It’s really easy for someone to go meatless one day a week instead of telling them they need to be vegetarian, which is not reachable for some people,” Omeis said.
Next week, Omeis plans to meet with Drexel Campus Dining and encourage the university to provide more vegan and vegetarian options for the student body.
“We’ve heard that a lot of students have stopped becoming vegans or vegetarians here just because they couldn’t eat it here. They had nothing to eat here and that’s really sad,” she said.
Omeis hopes that the termination of Drexel’s student dining contract with SodexoMagic will lead to a new contract with a provider who will be willing to make significant changes to the dining options, which she believes are lacking in variety.
“There are mostly vegans and vegetarians in our organization and they have noticed that there are very limited options — even healthy options — [in the dining halls],” Omeis said.
Although it is called Meatless Mondays, students are not limited to just participating on Mondays. Participants can choose to go meatless any day of the week.
“If you decide to eat [meat], it’s not about being hard on yourself, it’s not about being perfect. It’s about the effort and the awareness,” Omeis said.
Students who wish to participate in Meatless Monday can pledge online at http://drexel.meatlessmondaypledge.com/.