Congratulations to 11-Year-Old Eshiana of San Jose, CA!
She’s PETA Kids’ Cutest Vegan Kid of 2019. ♥
Eshiana went vegetarian when she was 5 because she didn’t want to support the unethical treatment of animals. But when she was 7, she learned that the egg and dairy industries also hurt and kill animals. This made her choose to stop contributing to the cruelty of using animals for food by going vegan. Now, both her parents are vegan and even her grandma is working toward going vegan.
Eshiana is an elite-level acrobatic gymnast, so you might just see her in the Olympics one day! She’s a fierce animal lover and a passionate reader. Not only does she speak at festivals in her area, telling audience members how eating vegan has helped her to be a great athlete, she also shares information about her kind lifestyle with her classmates and friends. She says that kids at her school are very curious about what she eats and that she always encourages them to go vegan. She is sure to shop for only cruelty-free cosmetics and believes that animals’ fur and skin should never be used for coats, boots, or anything else. Eshiana wants to be a vegan activist and an author when she grows up.
Congratulations to 10-Year-Old Leo of Atlanta, GA!
He’s PETA Kids’ Cutest Vegan Kid Runner-Up for 2019. 
Leo and his mom went vegan two years ago, after she asked him if he’d do a one-week vegan challenge with her. Once he learned what happens to animals used for food from watching documentaries and doing his own research, he put himself in animals’ shoes skin, fins, or feathers and thought about the way he’d feel if he were in their position. He realized that other animals have feelings and deserve to live, just as humans do. So he decided to save nearly 200 of them a year by staying vegan after the challenge ended.
Leo loves sports and currently plays football. He says that being a vegan football player gives him a huge advantage, as it makes him light on his feet. He also likes that he’s been feeling happy, joyful, and full of good energy since going vegan. He likes to talk to other kids at school about going vegan, too, explaining that eating animal-derived food is wrong and that it’s bad for our bodies. He is also against keeping wild animals in captivity and doesn’t think animals should be forced to entertain humans. He relates the kind of places where animals are kept captive to jails, except that the animals have done nothing wrong, he says.
Leo loves lions because they remind him of his name. When he grows up, he wants to be a running back in the NFL or a CEO of a computer programming company, because he loves video games and wants to learn how to make them.