Animal Rights National Conference 2018

CWI was proud to be a Silver Sponsor of this year's Animal Rights National Conference, which took place in Los Angeles from June 28th to July 1st. We made our debut at the conference in 2014 and have proudly sponsored this important event ever since.

Nearly 2,000 animal advocates attended this year, and CWI was pleased to speak to many of them at our booth, which was ably manned by CWI Executive Director Carrie LeBlanc, National Campaigns Manager Rosemary Thompson, and Lead Volunteers Karrie Harvey and Shanna Cardea. We spoke to interested advocates about bout our 2019 WRATH event and the 2018 Freedom Matters demonstrations; we were pleased to have a lot of activist interest in both events. We received many sign ups from prospective new hosts! We also discussed the importance of continued anti-animal circus advocacy, and how CWI can help advocates speak out against all forms of animal cruelty, including the rodeo.

At the Saturday night banquet, we were very happy to see our dear friend and ally Ellen Ericksen awarded the Grassroots Animal Activist Award. Ellen is a powerhouse for animasl and always steps up for CWI campaigns, for which we are so grateful. Thank you for all you do, Ellen!

Executive Director Carrie delivered a talk as a part of the "Using Animals for Entertainment" panel. She discussed the importance of addressing issues within animal rights that engage people with animals "they already care about" like elephants, bears, tigers, and orcas. Her talk was well-received and has since gained over 1,000 views on Facebook. You can view her talk in its entirety below.

CWI thanks all of the attendees of the conference for your participation, and our donors and volunteers for enabling us to be there!