November 25, 2024

Discovering CAA and a Passion for Service

Alysia Nelson has been volunteering with Compassionate Action for Animals (CAA) for the past year and a half, combining her passion for plant-based living with her commitment to serving others. She discovered CAA through MeetUp while searching for programs that served plant-based meals. Alysia was drawn to CAA’s work preparing and serving meals for those in transitional housing at Simpson Housing Services.

Why CAA?

“CAA does A LOT to improve the lives and well-being of animals,” Alysia shared, explaining what initially impressed her about the organization and inspired her to get involved.

A Range of Volunteer Roles

Since joining CAA, Alysia has contributed in various ways, including as a photographer for this year’s Twin Cities Veg Fest. She described the experience as “a blast and really well-organized.” With her enthusiasm for photography, the role was a natural fit, and she appreciated how accessible CAA makes it to volunteer.

Making an Impact Through Volunteering

For Alysia, volunteering is about making a difference. “Assisting an organization that encourages people to be more conscious consumers makes me feel good,” she said.

Life Outside of Volunteering

When she’s not helping CAA, Alysia enjoys supporting the arts by attending comedy shows, concerts, and museum exhibits. She also stays active, loves to travel, and experiments in the kitchen with plant-based recipes. For eating out, Alysia is a fan of local favorites like Francis Burger Joint, Pizza Lucé, and Reverie Cafe + Bar.

Choosing Compassion

Her decision to live a plant-based lifestyle is a compassionate choice that aligns with her values. “Overall, it’s better for your health, for the planet, and for the animals,” she explained.

Building Connections at CAA

One of the most rewarding aspects of volunteering, she says, is getting to know the people involved with CAA. “I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the people who work and volunteer with CAA — I definitely recommend it!”

Thank you, Alysia, for your enthusiasm and dedication to making a difference for animals and inspiring others to do the same!

Past Volunteer Spotlights

If you would like to get to know some other volunteers, check out other recent volunteer profiles:

Volunteer Spotlight on Tom Hoch

Volunteer Spotlight on Lexy Race

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!