Get Involved

Tools and Resources

Tabling

Time and Location · Setting up the Table · Staffing the Table
After the Event · Order Tabling Materials

Tabling for farm animals is an excellent way to reach out to the general public and educate individuals about farm animal abuse and vegetarianism. Setting up a table provides you with the opportunity to present yourself as an information source for these issues for people who may not be familiar with factory farming issues, and at the same time allows you to meet others from your community who are also concerned about farm animal abuse.

Education on this local level is the key to creating a broader consciousness of the way farm animals are raised and mistreated and teaching the benefits of a lifestyle without the use of animal products.

Tips for an Effective Outreach Table:

TIME AND LOCATION

• Consider carefully the timing of your tabling event. It is often effective to table on holidays or other days that already stand out in people's minds: for instance, set up a "No Veal" table on Mother's Day to protest how veal calves are stolen from their mothers immediately after birth.
• Pick a location that has a good flow of people.
• Health food stores, libraries, and universities are good places to set up a table. Be sure to get prior permission from storeowners or managers, librarians, and/or campus authorities.
• Festivals or fairs are great places to table. Tabling space at small fairs is usually very inexpensive or free. At larger festivals, exhibit fees may be significantly higher, though nonprofit rates are often available. If fees for tabling space prove too expensive, you may want to approach another animal protection agency in your area and ask if they would share the space with you.

To obtain a list of upcoming festivals or fairs in your community, contact your local Chamber of Commerce, Department of Parks and Recreation, or Tourist Department in your area. They can also let you know if tabling permits are needed.

SETTING UP THE TABLE

• Literature: The most important educational tool on any outreach table is the literature that your visitors can take home. Distributing literature to the community greatly increases the likelihood that concerned individuals will get involved in the fight to protect farm animals. Farm Sanctuary can provide you with literature for your outreach table. Organize the literature neatly on the table. Make sure to familiarize yourself with the information so that you can direct people to the handout that will answer their questions. Please click here to see our literature selection.
• Sign-Up Sheets: Sign-up sheets are crucial outreach tools that allow caring individuals in your community to become more directly involved with farm animal protection efforts. These can be requested from Farm Sanctuary. Be sure to ask everyone who visits the table to sign up on the sheet. Also, if people have questions or require further information, they can request it on the sign-up sheet.
• Donation Can: You can request a donation can from Farm Sanctuary. Place the can on the table for people to contribute to help end farm animal suffering.
• Farm Sanctuary Table Sign, Photographs, and Posters: These items are available from Farm Sanctuary. Attach the sign to the front of your table to attract the attention of people walking by. Order posters and photographs to demonstrate specific factory farming cruelty issues.
• If there is an available electrical outlet near your tabling space, consider running video loops on a television screen next to your exhibit. Video images can be very powerful and will attract more visitors to your table. Farm Sanctuary can provide videos on factory farming for your table.

Order literature, posters, signs and stickers and other tabling materials from Farm Sanctuary, or contact us at activist@farmsanctuary.org or (607) 583-2225 ext. 229 for assistance.

STAFFING THE TABLE:

• Make sure to smile and greet everyone who comes up to the table. If you are open and friendly, people are more likely to stop and ask questions.
• If someone is confrontational, do not argue with him or her. Simply try calmly to talk about the issues or point them to some of the literature. If they are interested in arguing, politely disengage from the conversation. It will only waste time and perhaps alienate others walking by if you engage in an argument.
• If someone asks a question you do not know how to answer, tell the individual you are unsure of the answer, but you can have someone from Farm Sanctuary get back to him or her. Have them write down their question and contact information on the sign-up sheet and someone from Farm Sanctuary will send them a response.

AFTER THE EVENT:

• Mail back the donation can, table sign and sign-in sheets to Farm Sanctuary. If you have extra literature, feel free to keep it to give out at a later date.
• Continue to spread the word about farm animal abuse and the benefits of a veg lifestyle! Please contact us again if you are willing to set up another tabling event.

To get more involved in this and other activist projects, join Farm Sanctuary's Activist Network. Please click here to fill out our online Activist Questionnaire.

For additional information, please call 607-583-2225 ext. 229 or email activist@farmsanctuary.org.