We are asking The Children's Farm at The Center in Palos Park, IL to stop the routine slaughter of animals in their SAGE program. With this change, The Center has the ability to make our community a kinder and more peaceful place to live.

While the program aims for transparency in their hands-on farming practices at their children's farm camp, there can be no real transparency in animal farming without exposing children to the violence of slaughter. This is why we are suggesting that if the program aims to truly teach children all of the intricacies of ethical and sustainable farming, that the children are taught how to grow crops or garden instead. Above all else, we want The Center to know that if they agree to make the shift towards an ethical and sustainable plant and crop-focused SAGE program, we pledge to offer our support, resources, and to volunteer our services during the transition in any way that may be needed. 

We are kindly asking the leaders of this organization to recognize that no animal farming can be ethical or humane since it is no longer a necessity in our modern day society, but a choice, and that evolving towards a kinder lifestyle is already in alignment with The Center's mission of peace, celebration of life, and healing. We are asking the leaders of this organization to be an example to the children showing them how to be compassionate even in times when it may not be convenient, how to use our positions of power to help others rather than to take advantage of them, to show kindness to others even when those around us are not doing the same, and to be kind and merciful simply because it is the right thing to do. The Center can do this by sparing the lives of these gentle, innocent animals because they are sentient beings who have the capacity to feel and suffer, and these animals are no different from our beloved cats and dogs. As quoted from The Children's Farm at The Center's website: "All creatures, big and small, our Lord, our God made them all." 

Animal farming, even on a small, farm-to-table scale, is neither ethical nor sustainable. In addition to its innate cruelty, animal farming has been attributed to a mass global depletion of resources, being the leading cause of environmental destruction, rain forest destruction, species extinction, water depletion, ocean dead zones, habitat loss, human disease in the western world, and child starvation in the eastern world. If we are to teach our children anything that would benefit and empower them for their own future, it should be how to preserve the earth’s precious resources by implementing sustainable veganic farming practices, healthy eating habits, and ultimately kindness and reverence towards all life. If we are presented with the option to choose kindness, why wouldn't we? 

Thank you so much for your time. We truly appreciate it!

 

Sincerely,

The Chicagoland Community

 

 

Sources:

https://www.milliondollarvegan.com​

https://www.worldanimalfoundation.org/articles/article/8949042/186425.htm​

http://science.time.com/2013/12/16/the-triple-whopper-environmental-impact-of-global-meat-production/​

https://osher.ucsf.edu/patient-care/integrative-medicine-resources/cancer-and-nutrition/faq/animal-protein-cancer-risk​

https://awfw.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/FSWFW.pdf​

https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/cattle-ranching​

https://humanefacts.org/practices/