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Welcome to the AARA Blog

Hello and Thank you for taking interest in our Animal Rights Advocate group.

Welcome to the AARA Blog page, I would like to share fun and uplifting stories, tasty food, Animal Rights/Vegan Events and so much more with you. I want this is become a community type blog. Feel freed to send in your i

deas or written blogs you would like to see posted.

This is our first post so I'm going to take the chance to introduce myself and explain my personal goals and goals for AARA.

My name is Katie Barber and this is my story of how I became vegan and got all this started.

My love for animals has always been strong since before I can remeber and today I am a Registered Veterinary Technician. I have always been an animal lover having various pets (Cats, Dogs, Hamster, Rats, Birds, Fish) growing up and having a mother who loved to

care for wildlife. As I grew I learned about how to care for animals. I also started learning they are extremely misunderstood and mistreated. I wanted to help save as many as I could.

I can remember multiple occasions in my life from various people telling me “you cant save them all”, but I wanted to. So I went to school to become a Veterinary Technician (an animal nurse).

As a kid I was a bit of a dreamer, the thought of talking to animals, or living in the woods like a wolf were common to me. I wanted to run barefoot like Pocahontas and have friends who were animals. As I grew older these ideas changed into I want to live free spirited and be like a Hippie. I love colour and hippies wore tie-dye so that was cool with me. The thought of being a vegetarian came to mind (I had never heard of a vegan) but being a picking eater I loved my meat and hated my vegetables. I wasn't until I was 26 and started going to yoga to try to mediate and be more hippie like.

Then shortly after starting Yoga I was trying to open up to the idea of vegetarianism again. A coworker told me about a group of compassionate people who “bare witness” to animals on their way to slaughter.

This turned out to be the group Toronto Pig Save. The TPS is a group of compassionate individuals who watch as the “Death trucks” full of innocent souls approach, are unloaded, and leave the slaughterhouses here in Toronto. They do public outreach with leaflets, sometimes video and lots of great volunteers. I started following them on Facebook I thought they were amazing people and wanted to build my confidence so I could join them. I attended the March

To Close Down Slaughter Houses and was blown away at the energy and kindness from the people at the event. I met several people that day that help talked to me about making the switch from vegetarian to vegan. Another huge hurdle was giving up cheese and milk. I started cutting dairy from my diet right away after some new friends told me about vegan cheese. It was hard at first I had to stop drinking milk in my tea, no more cereal. I didn’t eat cheese for a month and the first time I had a veggie burger I hated it. But over time my taste buds changed or I forgot what a meat burger tasted like and any veggie burger was amazing. By September 2013 I went vegan-cutting dairy from my diet.

I started attending Vigils with Toronto Pig Save (Before Quality Meat Packers shut down) in July of 2013 and was over taken by the love and compassion of this group of its caring individuals. Everyone I met came from different backgrounds and had a great story of how and why they went Vegan. I also started to help out with vigils in any way I could make posters, leafleting, and showing my support. Toronto still has two Cow slaughterhouses and one Chicken murder facility.

My new friends took me under their wind and taught me how to leaflet and hold protests for all kinds. Thank you!

After a few months of attending vigils, outreach leafleting and protests in Toronto I started looking for other Activist groups in my area of Aurora but found nothing. So I have started a Facebook group, Aurora’s Animal Rights Advocates. Our mission is to raise awareness to the inexcusable treatment and use of animals in the food, fashion, experimentation, and entertainment industries. We expose the truth to help people understand the implications of their lifestyle choices, not only on the animals but also on the future of our planet and the overall health of each individual. AARA host's local vegan potlucks, movie screenings, outreach events, bearing witness events, demonstrations and more. Our events aim to help teach others the benefits of a plant-based diet, how to be a good friend to animals and the planet. We also support local farm animal sanctuaries, with our main focus on Wishing Well Sanctuary (Bradford, ON). (I have been a volunteer at the Sanctuary for almost a year now, Its my favorite place to be!!)

After a couple weeks I started posting I had some following online and was meeting a couple people from my area who were also vegan. I found a protest in my area, the first one was a Rodeo Protest and Janette and I were they only ones there in the rain. Janette and I hit if it off and she has always been there to help me with events in Aurora, Thank you Janette for believing in me! A couple months later I met another local woman named Grace, who is a fantastic vegan cook/baker, she too has always bee

n there to help support any event we have lined up. Thank you Grace for keeping me going! We met back in 2013 and since then we have had monthly potluck events where we show movies, have speakers and share great vegan food. We have held multiple protests, taken part in many more and also participated in multiple community events. My goal is for our animal rights group to become accepted in the community and known for being a kind, compassionate group of animal lovers, who want peace for all beings. We use a positive love based approach to all our events.

Thank you for caring about animals and reading my story, together we can make a better world for all beings.

Have you signed up for our newsletter? Make sure you do for event invites and local Animal Rights and Vegan updates!

And Subscribe to us on youtube for more sanctuary videos, events updates and more!

Compassion is my Passion, Peace is my Mission,

Thank you for reading - Katie Barber

founder of Aurora's Animal Rights Advocates

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