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When Cayce Mell was a child she came home one day to find her mother in tears looking through photographs of Korean dog markets, the places where dogs are slaughtered, hung in trees and sold for food.

The photos horrified Mell so much that she set out with the pictures in hand and canvassed the neighborhood for donations to stop the practice. She collected 78 cents and immediately sent it off with a note to a then fledging organization.

A couple weeks later, Mell received a return note thanking her for her donation, saying it would be put to good use in the organization's treasury.

The thank you note came from a little known English woman who was working out of her home in suburban Maryland to form a group with the purpose of championing animal rights. That organization later became known around the world as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the woman who wrote Mell was PETA founder and president, Ingrid Newkirk.

Sunday, more than 20 years after that first correspondence, Newkirk and Mell got together again. This time Newkirk was in western Pennsylvania to visit OohMahNee Farm, the farm animal sanctuary that Mell co-founded near Armbrust in Mt. Pleasant Township.

OohMahNee, which is now a nonprofit organization, had its annual open house yesterday, and Newkirk was the featured speaker.

Many of the more than 500 people who attended yesterday's event, if they never met Newkirk or listened to her speak before, were surprised at what they saw and heard. Instead of the activist who is abhorred by livestock and farming groups around the United States, they saw a slim, blond, casually dressed, middle-aged woman who looked like she could be your neighbor helping car-pool the children to school.

And the person the United States Cattlemen's Association once called "an evil woman" who was running a "dangerous organization" didn't sound nearly as radical as some of the "attacks" she and PETA have backed.

"It was very inspiring to hear the person behind the news," said Brad Korinski, an attorney from Pittsburgh's Morningside section. "She was a much more moderate person than I expected. She was almost schoolmarmish, but inspiring."

"I was just thrilled to hear her," said Jennifer Stone of Peters Township, Washington County. "She's a big part of who I am. I became a vegetarian 15 years ago because of PETA."

Newkirk, who spoke for about 25 minutes, referred several times to the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

"That important rule of life is suspended in our relationship with other animals," Newkirk said. "Slaughtering and stealing is just plain wrong."

Newkirk recalled stories of horrific treatment she said animals involved in factory farming receive. She told how sheep get pneumonia because the wool is sheared just before winter to increase production, and how toes and other parts of chickens are cut off to cram more into the factory farm "warehouses."

She also described the animals she saw on trips to slaughterhouses.

"Their eyes are as big as saucers," Newkirk said. "They don't want to be there, and they don't want to die."

She also confessed she once had been a meat-eater, and she talked about how the change from a meat to a vegan diet came about gradually. The first time she turned away from meat, she said, was when she was dining out and had picked out a live lobster for dinner. When the broiled lobster arrived back at the table, she said she cried; she could not eat it.

She also talked about a time when, as a humane officer in Maryland, she was called to a farm where all but one animal had died from neglect. The only animal that survived was a small pig that she said she cradled in her arms.

When she went home that night, Newkirk said she looked to see what was available for dinner. As she was ready to prepare pork chops, she remembered the pig.

"I realized I was going to eat a product that caused immense suffering to animals," Newkirk said. "I couldn't do it."

The same thought related to other animals. Think about the lambs playing in the fields, she said.

"You think it's a leg of that lamb," Newkirk said. "It's a breast of a chicken or a wing of a chicken. She just has two. Could you leave them alone!"

Newkirk talked about the strides that have been made in the past two decades.

"So much has changed because people care." But, she said, the job isn't done.

"Tell everyone you know. Don't ever be quiet," Newkirk exhorted the group. "There's no end to the list of horrors. Some people still don't get it."

After Newkirk's talk, Mell said, "Wow! It was an incredible honor to have one of my childhood heroes visit OohMahNee and speak to people in our community about animal advocacy.

"When I sent that 78 cents in and got her letter back, at that moment, I became a confirmed animal rights advocate," Mell said.

While Mell emphasized she may not agree with everything PETA does or the tactics used by more radical animal rights groups, she thinks it is important that people know there are many levels of animal advocacy. Volunteering at OohMahNee is just one of those levels.

"I'm just very honored to know that, collectively, we are all working toward some good," Mell said.

As for the dedicated group of volunteers at OohMahNee, Mell said, "We would like to see the day when there are more people here than animals."

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