Vegan Street Is Stalled Until We Get a Computer

From Marla Rose and John Beske

Hi, friends -

John’s five-year-old MacBook Pro has finally breathed its last electronic breath after several past breakdowns. We checked and if it were repairable at all, the cost of the repairs would be more than the computer is worth.

For the next week or two, we will able to limp along by borrowing time on our son’s computer for some of the graphics we create, but we can’t keep that up for very long.

In short, we need a new computer to be able to keep doing our work.

Over the last 10 years, we have built a community of hundreds of thousands of people while sharing thousands of memes, recipes, essays and other content that has been instrumental in the growth of the vegan movement.

During this time, we have posted original new graphics several times a week, even when we were out of town or when one of our computers was in the shop and even from John’s hospital bed when he was going through his leukemia journey.

The two of us have created and presented all of this work for free, and living off the money we brought in from design work and writing we do for vegan businesses and nonprofits. We live a pretty thrifty lifestyle and any extra money we receive goes into creating more vegan content and sharing it with the world. We have also recently launched The Little Free Plant-Powered Pantry, which provides free non-perishable vegan food to anyone who passes by and it’s helping a lot of local people with food access issues.

We have a few dozen people supporting us on Patreon and we are very grateful for them, but on the whole, we have rarely asked the community for anything in return. But now we have to ask, so we can keep creating the work that is helping to build a more compassionate world.

There aren’t many computers on the market capable of producing the high-end graphics that we need to be able to create Vegan Street and all the various work we do for our paying clients. One of the few that can do the job is the MacBook Pro, which is also the computer that has helped us produce all the work we have done so far.

A MacBook Pro that is comparable to the one we just lost would cost us about $3,000.

There have been many occasions where we have asked our friends and supporters for money and other help to support various groups and causes, and we have raised tens of thousands of dollars for them. But we’re not as comfortable raising money for ourselves even though Vegan Street also provides a lot of good for the community, society, the animals and the planet.

We will always continue to do this hard work as long as we are able to do so. At the moment though, we are facing one such obstacle and this time we need some help to get over it.

We deeply appreciate any contribution you can spare to our computer fund and helping to get the word out. Any amount is generous and appreciated! With your help, we’ll be up and running at full speed again very soon!