Asheville
Eighteen-year-old Asheville resident Jennifer Thornburg has won an Outstanding Activist Award from PETA2 the world’s largest youth animal rights organization for her successful effort to have a dissection choice policy for students adopted at her school. She is also being recognized for her other efforts to help animals and promote animal rights.

Jennifer went vegan more than three years ago, and when she was in seventh grade, she was given an assignment to dissect a chicken – something she instinctively knew was wrong.

She later learned that animals used for dissection, including wild animals, cats and dogs, are cruelly killed and that animals such as fetal pigs come from factory-farmed sows. In October 2006 – “Cut Out Dissection” month – Jennifer made it her mission to persuade Asheville High School administration and faculty to implement a policy that would allow students who have ethical or religious objections to dissection to complete an alternative assignment. Jennifer collected petition signatures and attended committee meetings to present her case. She persuaded all the science teachers to approve the policy, overcoming some stiff opposition. On the second-to-last day of school – a full nine months after launching her campaign – Jennifer’s idea became official school policy.

Jennifer’s work in behalf of animals isn’t limited to school. She has organized protests for peta2’s “Kentucky Fried Cruelty” campaign aimed at pressuring the chicken chain to stop its suppliers’ worst factory-farming and slaughter abuses. She also volunteers for Carolina Animal Action and is an active member of the Asheville Vegetarian Society. Jennifer was recently profiled in the Citizen-Times.

“We’re thrilled to name Jennifer our Star Street Teamer of the month,” says peta2 Assistant Director Dan Shannon. “She’s setting an example not only in her school and her community but also for hundreds of thousands of other peta2 Street Teamers.”