Making the commitment

We're a go.

After 36 years averaging about 4 servings of meat (and meat by-products) per day*, I am officially giving it all up. Well, for a month. What could cause one of America's biggest carnivores to declare sausage, steak, burgers (and dare I say it, fish) off limits for 30 straight days?

I'm doing it to raise money for the kids of Excel Academy Charter School, one of the most amazing places on Earth. Plunked down in the corner of a strip mall, serving an urban community where 73% of students qualify for the federal free and reduced lunch program, Excel has produced spectacular results. Its eighth grade class, for example, placed in the top one percent statewide on standardized tests. Yes, the top one percent of a group that includes all the rich, white suburban communities where we more-privileged types went to school.

After graduation, Excel students often attend elite college preparatory schools... elite and expensive college preparatory schools. To remain on the trajectory that Excel helped them establish, they need money. Indeed, they need money more than I need meat.

Which is why it'll be a Meat-Free September to Benefit Excel Academy. I want to raise money for these kids. Sure, I could bike across Iowa**, looking for sponsorships like everyone else. But that would be the easy way out. Yes, the 1990 Amherst College chicken nugget eating champion, the man who considers the four food groups to be: burgers, Italian sausages, chicken parm and bratwurst, the man who recently snuck a bathroom scale into Fogo de Chao and gained 6.5 pounds between the “before” and “after” weigh-ins-- that man is willing to go veggies-and-Boca for 30 days to honor and support the students of Excel Academy.

Here's how it works. Bet me that I can't do it. Email kugelonline(at)yahoo.com or send your (ostensibly tax deductible) check made out to Excel Academy to me, Jeremy Kugel, at 2813 Covington Rd, Silver Spring MD 20910. If I eat just one morsel of meat between September 1 and September 30, I rip up the checks. If I make it, I head right to the post office (just so happens there's a McDonald's on the way) and send your check to Excel.

Go ahead. Bet against me. Then check back here often to see me suffer. After all, it's for the kids.... Suggested donation is $100... but we'll take what we can get.

Thanks for your support,

Jeremy

*estimate
**maybe