We asked the public to contact the USDA, and they did in vast numbers. In fact, such large numbers of people contacted the USDA that the agency decided that not only were they not going to expand the practice of face branding, but that they were going to do away with the practice altogether. Once they did that, we did a full-page advertisement thanking the USDA for being responsive. A lot of people around the country are interested in the type of work you're doing, but they're first time activists and may not have the money or the ability to work full time on activism. We did the campaign on the American Museum of Natural History while I was working full-time as a teacher, and we did the Revlon campaign when I was still a teacher.
People generally have more discretionary time than they realize.
If you truly feel you should be accomplishing something, I think you'll find that you can make a lot of time. I think you can start off by writing letters to the editor, by doing op-ed pieces, by writing articles for the local community papers and school papers. You don't have to start out with full-page advertisements in the New York Times. Once you build a track record you can access the funds necessary to do that sort of stuff. You've got to start by building a track record.