Our Hands is a professional, short documentary series connecting the abuse of slaughterhouse workers and community pollution to suffering animals endure in the food system. The first installment, Susana, tells the story of a former slaughterhouse worker who now fiercely advocates for animals: accepted to the AmDocs 2020 Film Festival (and possibly SunDance), it is eligible for an Academy Award. Please do not share this link with anyone, as it could compromise our festival acceptance agreements: shorturl.at/cfmFI (Password: Susana2020).

The second installment will tell the story of Crystal, a single mother who was sexually assaulted and placed in solitary confinement at the hands of Kansas' privatized fostercare system. Overcoming this trauma as a young adult brought Crystal to realizations about animals, motivating her to advocacy as she councils other women victimized by the system over vegan fellowship meals. Living in rural Sedgwick County, Crystal and her kids are forced to breathe pollution from nearby hog farms and sprays from monocultured fields growing feed crops. By sharing her story, our film will raise money for her to move to the city and ramp up her animal and fostercare advocacy efforts as she completes her GED.

Like our first film Susana, the film Crystal will connect second-hand trauma humans experience from the first-hand violence experienced by animals. Linking these forms of empathy with film festival worthy, 5-minute films equally accessible to mass audiences on social media, we want to counter the narrative that animal advocacy is an exclusive cause detached from other issues of social justice. With your generous support, we will be much closer to funding our equipment rentals in Kansas, which my co-director and co-producer Laura Gamse (an award-winning filmmaker at Stanford) at the end of this summer. Our combined budget for the film is a modest $4,000, which we will be very close to reaching with the Awesome Foundation's support.