Can you ask for a cup of coffee?

This is a scary time. We all have friends or family members who are struggling—perhaps they can’t sell their home, or their pay has been cut, or they’re simply nervous about what might happen to their jobs in the coming months. That same dismal economic situation is causing an increase in the number of calls for help that PETA is receiving. Animals are having their worst time too. Combine that with a drop in donations, and it is a serious situation indeed.

Whistleblowers are providing more tips than ever about cruel and illegal actions against animals in their neighborhoods, behind the closed doors of laboratories, factory farms, circuses, and dog-breeding operations, and in all those other hellholes we know so well. As you know, staff members carry emergency beepers every single day of the year, including Christmas and every other holiday. We can't—and we just won't—cut back on answering calls for help. When local officials won't act, there often isn't anyone but PETA to help the dogs and cats starving in a foreclosed home, or anyone else who will take the call of the security guard who discovers that the heat has gone out in a laboratory full of animals.

You are in a powerful position to help answer all of these calls for help. Most of your friends, family members and co-workers don’t want animals to suffer, but they don’t know how to help, either. You know good people and you’re running for a good group…you’re the conduit!

Please send out another e-mail tonight. Remind people that all donations to PETA are tax-deductible, and the year is almost over! Some of you have had surprise donations from in-laws and old college acquaintances. Don’t hesitate to ask people, and don’t hesitate to ask twice. Many people mean to donate, but forget.

People may be pinching pennies right now, and they might think that giving a small donation won’t help. Not true! What if everyone on our lists gave up fancy soy lattes for a day? Three lattes is about $16. If 100 people gave $16, they could pay for a week's worth of free spay-and-neuter surgeries by our DogDoc clinic. They could give 320 of our wonderful youth Street Team members the materials to reach 500 people with a fur-free message, and we now have more than 380,000 Street Team members out there acting in behalf of animals!

You’re not asking selfishly. You’re not asking for yourself. You’re asking for animals who desperately need help, and they’re always the last to receive help. Here’s what Ingrid has to say about the importance of giving right now: “Please do not be embarrassed to ask your friends to dig. The money is not for you, it is for those whom we serve and care about with every fiber of our being. The donors care, too, but sometimes people need to be asked to think about the importance of their decisions.”

The good news is that we are doing everything we can. PETA is a model of efficiency already, so cutting corners is already something that we think about constantly. PETA staff members are arranging a sale of their own unneeded holiday gifts to raise money for animals. We've cut out some activist materials, which now must be downloaded directly from our Web site and copied. PETA staff members are also doing all they can to cover the doghouse deliveries for the winter months—again, all as volunteers.

Thank you for doing what you can to help PETA avoid cutbacks by asking your friends to give whatever they can, to help us fight back for animals. We live in hope that someone will actually give more, knowing that so many others are cutting back—or cutting animals out of their giving entirely.

Good luck. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you!!

Alex