{"id":17392,"date":"2021-05-17T09:00:45","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=17392"},"modified":"2021-05-04T09:23:27","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T13:23:27","slug":"california-student-arpi-keshishian-wins-10000-vegetarian-resource-group-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/17\/california-student-arpi-keshishian-wins-10000-vegetarian-resource-group-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"CALIFORNIA STUDENT ARPI KESHISHIAN WINS $10,000 VEGETARIAN RESOURCE GROUP SCHOLARSHIP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Arpi wrote, \u201cKnowing that millions of animals are suffering\nand being killed in factory farms each year, just to be served as school\nlunches that would usually be left uneaten, completely broke my heart. I knew\nthat something had to change \u2026 I decided to create a plant-based survey and\nsend it out to students across my school district. In this survey, I questioned\nif the student would want to have more plant-based options, what plant-based\nmeals they are interested in, and what their reasoning was behind their answer.\nI then used ArcGIS (an online mapping application) to create a dashboard\ndisplaying the survey results. I included bar graphs, pie charts, and maps to\ndemonstrate the percentage of students who wanted vegan and\/or vegetarian\noptions and I displayed where the data was gathered from with the use of a pie\nchart and a map. I then set up a zoom meeting with my school\u2019s nutritional\nservices director where I pitched my idea and used my survey and dashboard\nresults as evidence that our school district had a clear demand for more\nplant-based options.\u201d Arpi\u2019s reference stated: \u201cShe got the whole district\nfood services administration to join Zoom, and led the meeting, presenting fact\nbased data to support incorporating vegan options on a regular basis for school\nmeals. Our district food services director was so impressed with the work she\nhad done researching affordable vegan options for our lunch and snack menu that\nshe thanked Arpi for doing the survey saying that data does make a difference,\nand asked her to send her the data collected from her survey. Through her\nefforts the food service director did commit to including falafel, soymilk,\nfruit parfaits, and other vegan items to the school menu.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, to further encourage vegetarianism in her\ncommunity, Arpi partnered with the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition to\nrepresent them at her high school\u2019s AP environmental science courses. As a\nguest speaker, she spoke to two classrooms regarding the ethical and\nenvironmental issues linked with factory farming. In addition, she also created\na quick-and-easy vegan recipe tutorial on her school\u2019s tv show, Quarter Past\nClark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For her senior thesis, Arpi did a paper on food subsidies.\nShe plans to focus her career around advocating for and creating new food-based\npolicies in the United States. She said, \u201cMajor topics that I am interested in\nare transitioning governmental food subsidies away from animal agriculture\ntowards fruit and vegetable farms. … I believe that in order to further\nspread the vegan and vegetarian movements, it is essential to stay\ncompassionate in all aspects of life, by treating everyone with kindness, both\nhumans and nonhuman animals alike.\u201d Arpi will be attending UC San Diego for a\npolitical science and public policy major, with a minor in climate change\nstudies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deadline for the next Vegetarian Resource Group\nscholarship contest for high school seniors graduating in 2022 is February 20,\n2022. To see rules and past scholarship winners, visit vrg.org\/student\/scholar.htm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To support additional scholarships and internships, donate\nat vrg.org\/donate<\/a>,\ncall (410) 366-8343, or send donations to VRG, P.O. Box 1463, Baltimore, MD\n21203.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arpi wrote, \u201cKnowing that millions of animals are suffering and being killed in factory farms each year, just to be served as school lunches that would usually be left uneaten, completely broke my heart. I knew that something had to change \u2026 I decided to create a plant-based survey and send it out to students […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17394,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17392\/revisions\/17394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}