September 3, 2024
Discovering a Passion for Volunteering
Lexy Race began her journey with Compassionate Action for Animals (CAA) on February 10th, 2024, when she volunteered at a book signing and speaking event featuring Dr. Greger. This event marked the beginning of her involvement with the organization. Since then, Lexy has become a familiar face at various CAA events, contributing her time and energy to a cause she deeply believes in.
How It All Started
Lexy first learned about CAA at the Twin Cities Veg Fest in 2021. However, it wasn’t until she participated in the Plant-Based Bike Crawl in 2023 that her interest in volunteering really took off. Meeting the CAA staff members at this event inspired her to get more involved. Reflecting on her experience, Lexy shares, “What impresses me the most about CAA is how organized and inclusive the community is.”
A Variety of Volunteer Roles
Over the past few months, Lexy has taken on a range of volunteer roles within CAA. She helped out at the Dr. Greger book signing, ran the ring toss at the annual banquet, made and served dinner at Simpson Housing, engaged in outreach at multiple festivals, and served food during the Plant-Based Bike Crawl. These roles, Lexy explains, were easy to sign up for and not too demanding. They also provided her with a wonderful opportunity to connect with others in the community.
The Joy of Connecting With Others
For Lexy, the most rewarding aspect of volunteering is the chance to connect with people. She loves meeting like-minded individuals and engaging with passersby to talk about plant-based living. “I appreciate the hard work CAA puts into the community and enjoy helping where I can,” she says. “Even if it’s just a small role, it feels good to be a part of an effort to make our communities and environment healthier.”
Balancing Hobbies and Studies
When Lexy isn’t volunteering, she enjoys a variety of hobbies. She spends time going to the gym, practicing yoga, playing her guitar, and enjoying the outdoors with her dog, Bubbles. Lexy is also studying public health part-time, with the goal of promoting healthy food access to communities in need.
Inspiration Behind a Plant-Based Lifestyle
Lexy is deeply inspired to eat plant-based and take action for animals because she sees it as a solution to many public health issues caused by animal agriculture. She believes that a plant-based diet can treat, prevent, and even reverse diet-related diseases, all while reducing pollution and promoting biodiversity.
Favorite Restaurant and At-Home Food
Lexy’s favorite restaurant is Reverie Cafe + Bar – an all vegan restaurant in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis. At home, she loves starting her mornings with a nutritious bowl of steel-cut oats topped with blueberries, dates, tahini, flaxseed, chia seed, and vanilla extract.
Looking Ahead
As Lexy continues her journey with CAA, she remains committed to making a positive impact in her community. Through her volunteer work, she’s not only contributing to a more compassionate world but also building lasting connections with others who share her passion for plant-based living and animal welfare.
Past Volunteer Spotlights
If you would like to get to know some other volunteers, check out other recent volunteer profiles:
Volunteer Spotlight on Faustine Micheyls
Volunteer Spotlight on Grace Prins
Volunteer Spotlight on Kim Milligan
Volunteer Spotlight on Allison Gamble
The mutual benefits of volunteering for CAA
Volunteers are key to everything we do. They help us to accomplish far more than we can do with our small staff and amplify our impact for animals. In 2023, our staff engaged over 260 volunteers, contributing more than 740 hours, across 96 different activities — a savings of over $12,000 if we had hired them. Learn more about volunteer impact every year in our annual reports.
Equally important is that the volunteers themself benefit from enhanced skills in advocacy and leadership as well as a sense of community. This fits with our theory of change which includes the following cyclical steps: increasing awareness, building community, empowering advocates, and creating change. Volunteering touches on each of these areas.
See all volunteer opportunities here.
CAA’s Theory of Change
Our theory of change emphasizes a welcoming approach, which is recognized as most effective at creating change and models the empathy we want to promote.
The theory explains how we achieve our mission to encourage people to embrace their empathy for animals and move toward a plant-based diet. It also supports our vision of a world where all animals, human and nonhuman, can thrive.
This change theory reflects how we grow our movement. Through our CAA programs, events, and activities, we facilitate a cyclical process of increasing awareness, building community, empowering advocates, and creating change. This process focuses on both individual and institutional change.
What kind of change do we create? Our programs reduce consumption of animal products and improve the lives of farmed animals. In addition, they benefit the well-being of all Minnesotans.
Compassionate Action for Animals’ theory of change was initially developed in 2017 with an online survey sent to key stakeholders, two town hall meetings open to the community members, and a strategic planning meeting attended by staff, core volunteers, and board members.
Get Involved and Volunteer with CAA
If you believe in our mission and our theory of change, we encourage you to get involved too. Sign up for one of our upcoming volunteer opportunities. There are so many fun events and options to choose from. Whatever your talents may be, you can find a volunteer opportunity that’s right for you — from photography to cooking and serving food, helping with setup and cleanup at events, greeting guests, and so much more. We thank you for all the ways that you speak up for animals and help our community!