VEGFEST 2011!

Worcester VegFest 2011 was last weekend, and it was just as we predicted- AWESOME. There was some great promotion this year and it definitely contributed to getting the word out. We started off the festivities with a pre-VegFest "get psyched" meeting the night before the event to start setting up. Coordinators and volunteers had a chance to go over details and chow down on  vegan pizza from Flats while unpacking all the books and merch.  Then it was time for the big day... VegFest! As a VegFest organizer and the exhibitor coordinator, I got to Worcester State University at 10am to start signing in and greeting vendors. The event was scheduled to begin at noon, but we had attendees lining the hallways by 11:30am. Huge crowds starting showing up around noontime. From 1pm~3pm, the exhibitor areas were so packed with humans, that it was actually getting a little tight in there. Among all the tons of free samples from exhibitors, VegWorcester's own free sample tables had Primal Strips, Odwalla bars, Chreese packets, Quick Gravy packets, 40 lbs of ecoVegan mock meat samples, coupons for Gardein, coupons for Follow Your Heart products and 15 cartons of vegan "milks" like  soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, etc. If you're curious where to get certain products found at the Worcester Vegfest, follow the exhibitor links below for online stores, or try your local Whole Foods Bellingham/Framingham locations are the closest locations to Worcester (about 20 miles), Living Earth on Park Ave, or Shaws Wild Harvest (several Worcester locations).

VEGFEST 2011 SCHEDULE:
12:15-1:00pm: BRUCE FRIEDRICH
1:15-2:00pm: TRACYE MCQUIRTER  

2:15-2:45pm VEGETABLE CIRCUS  

3:00-3:45pm: TERRY HOPE ROMERO 

4:00-4:45pm: WILL POTTER 

Since I was occupied with coordinating tasks, I wasn't able to watch the entire speaking sessions, but did try to catch a few minutes of each one. Bruce is the man. I'm familiar with his work and he always does an amazing job. Tracye... I respect that she is into the healthy aspects of going veg because it’s important to remember that many people enter the vegetarian world for health reasons. Tracye's samples were raw-vegan inspired and I love me some greens.

Terry Hope Romero arrived early and I got a chance to chat with her and help make some arrangements for transportation so she could go make her samples for the cooking demo. She is definitely a rad chick, and she even indulged my geek-ness by signing a copy of Viva Vegan and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar for me. Terry's seitan tacos were to die for!

Will Potter's presentation was certainly eye-opening for many. I was most curious to hear from him since this was the first time I had been exposed to his work. I'm really pumped to read Green Is The New Red. Unfortunately his books didn't arrive in time for VegFest, so hopefully I can score a copy soon.  The speaker room was packed during all the time slots, and we got heaps of positive and valuable feedback from all.

I was also impressed with Vegetable Circus. Tons of kiddos showed up to watch and participate in their show, and there were tons of smiles and happy dances going on. I would definitely recommend this group. They were professional, easy to work with, and so much fun. VegWorcester also had a kid's table with face painting and other children's activities.

There were so many important non-profit exhibitors as well as yummy food vendors. I spent a lot of time walking around to make sure they had all of their needs met and things were going well. Everyone seemed to have a lot of positive feedback. Like No Udder's ice cream truck was a huge hit and so was Coconut Bliss's free ice cream samples. There were huge lines all day for the vegan ice cream! Next time we'll need like 5 ice cream vendors maybe..? haha. I can't wait for another vegan soft serve! X's to O's Vegan Bakery had some tasty cupcakes and vegan twinkies- they seemed busy with customers all afternoon. I was also happy to try Wilderness Poet's nut butters for the first time. Mm. I noticed they sell Wilderness Poets at The Living Earth on Park Ave. Try the pistachio.

Here is a full list of all the exhibitors with links to their websites for reference. Definitely check them out, visit, buy stuff, donate, volunteer, and so on...

VEGFEST 2011 EXHIBITOR/SPONSOR LIST:
* Artichoke Food CoOp
* Autonomie Project (sponsor)
* Belmont Vegetarian
* Boston Vegan Association
* Cedar Foods - Hummus
* Chartwells
* Cloa's Ark Animal Sanctuary
* Coconut Bliss
* Compassion Over Killing
* Duck Yao
* ecoVegan (sponsor)
* Falafal Republic (sponsor)
* Galaxy Nutritional Foods (sponsor)
* Humane League of Boston
* Humane Society of US
* Humane USA - MA PAC
* Isador's Organics (sponsor)
* Keifers Kettle Korn
* Like No Udder Vegan Ice Cream Truck
* Loving Hut (sponsor)
* Maple Farm Sanctuary
* MA Animal Rights Coalition (MARC) (sponsor)
* New Paris Books & Zines
* Peace Abbey
* Peace O' Pie
* PETA
* Quan Yin/Supreme Master Ching Hi
* Queenie Foundation
* Revitalive Health &Wellness
* Spirit Of Change Magazine (sponsor)
* Sproutman
* Sterling Animal Shelter
* Sweet Binks Rabbit Rescue
* The Universal Spirit
* United Poultry Concerns
* Vegan Metrowest Network
* VegNews Magazine
* Woo Daddy Waffles
* Wilderness Poets
* Worcester Earn-A-Bike
* Worcester Magazine (sponsor)
* Worcester Natural Foods
* VegFund
* VegWorcester
* X's to O's Vegan Bakery

All in all, VegFest 2011 was a huge success! I'd be willing to bet we had almost 3,000 people come through the doors. With the huge crowds, 40+ exhibitors, 4 national speakers, entertainment and tons of free samples, it was amazing to see it all finally come together last weekend. Although it was definitely a busy few months in the planning stage, it was a great experience to see this event go from just ideas on a piece of paper, to a full on Veg-Fest! Can't wait to see what we can do next year...

More Vegfest Photos @ VegWorcester's Facebook.

VegFest Is Almost Here!

So, for the past few months I've been helping plan the 2011 Worcester VegFest, and its almost here! Check out my Countdown To Worcester Vegfest posted on VegWorcester. With just 6 of us regularly meeting to plan an event for 3,000 people.. we've been busy. All the last minute preparations are taking place now though.. shipment of free samples, books, exhibitor confirmations, laying out of the space, and so on. We're measuring ceilings, counting chairs needed, cutting raffle tickets... you name it.

 

EcoVegan mock meat samples have arrived, and its difficult not to eat them haha! I received 2 sample boxes as well and was able to try cooking them up to see what might be the best method for VegFest sampling, and oh man.. they were sooo delicious. These aren't hippy nut burgers by -any- means, and will surely satisfy veggies and carnivores alike. I can't wait to eat more of these at VegFest.

Oh, and check out the freeeee books I won through a WorldWide Vegan Bake Sale promotion - My Sweet Vegan by Hannah Kaminsky! There are tons of vegan dessert recipes with awesome photos too. I'll be donating most of them to VegWorcester to sell at VegFest, but plan to make some recipes out of them to post here this summer.

If you haven't already RSVP'd to our Facebook event, do it now! 

With all the crappy hassle over food vendor permits and only a small handful of us kick ass peeps on the planning committee its been a little stressful the past few weeks, but it looks as though things are coming together.

VegFest is going to be freekin AWESOME and everyone better come out and eat tons of veg food or I will hunt you down and slap the shit out of you.      (back-dated)

Criminally Tasty Vegan Bake Sale Shut Down By Worcester City Officials

Recently I hosted a humble vegan bake sale fundraiser in connection with the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale week/month to promote Worcester VegFest 2011. (Facebook Event) Moynihan's Pub on Main St. Worcester allowed VegWorcester volunteers to set up our table during their weekly Wednesday Trivia Night and plans were to raise a small amount of VegFest funds, but mostly just to share the egg-less joy of vegan-ized bakery items with fellow Worcestersites.

Well, go ahead and scratch all that. I ATTEMPED to host a vegan bake sale at Moynihans. As it turns out, Worcester police are cracking down hard on bake sales. That’s right folks,  it seems Main south doesn’t have much going on during the late night hours since Worcester city officials were getting serious, laying the hand of the law down on “offending” cupcakes in our city.

Firstly, I want to acknowledge the handful of awesome humans that stepped up to the plate April 6^th for the now controversial bake sale, whipping up some tasty vegan treats to contribute. Flyers were made, color copies of VegFest posters were printed, and the event was promoted on Facebook as well as through Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale's bake sale listing on their website. 

I made vegan raspberry vanilla cupcakes and vegan chocolate chip cookies. Some other “criminally” delicious goodies that showed up at the bake sale were vegan Boston creme cupcakes, chocolate crinkle cookies, vegan rice krispies, Oreo cookie cupcakes, key lime pies, cheesecake and much more.

 Since I’ve actually never been to a strictly vegan bake sale and had wanted to host one for a long time, I was noticeably pumped about the night. My girlish bake-sale dreams were shut down hard though.

There is an entire back-story to why the officials came to hassle us in the first place, but here is the summary: VegWorcester had been on the city’s radar all week since some VegFest posters were posted up by someone on Shrewsbury Street light poles without our knowledge. Since anyone could  print them and post them from our website, we had no control over where or how many were being put up. We let several city officials know that we were also concerned about the postings and had seemingly put effort toward taking care of the issue. Well, apparently city officials still wanted to press the issue and show their power over certain aspects of the city, such as bake sale fundraisers to raise funds to help end animal suffering. Posting pro-vegan flyers on fancy Shrewsbury Street locations (amidst the higher end slaughterhouse restaurants like Chophouse) is looked down upon by business owners, understandably. Since we had offered to discuss the matter with several officials and work towards keeping a good standing with the city, we though the issue had been taken care of.

As the cupcakes and cookies were laid out, the three male officials came in and circled me, telling me to shut down the bake sale and pack up. I obviously understand that food can cause illnesses if it’s not monitored at every second and if it doesn’t live up to the specific standards set forth in expensive food vendor permits, so I agreed that although it was unfortunate that we didn’t pay for expensive food permits ($55 temporary food vendor permits per baker, to be prepared in commercial kitchens), that we would pack it up.

Typically, animal products are the questionable ingredients that cause food-borne illnesses.  All ingredients in the vegan bake sale goods were specifically vegan- no milk, no dairy, no eggs and bakers were instructed to bring a note card listing ingredients and sub-ingredients.

I asked the city officials if they had been shutting down EVERY bake sale in the city. They paused for a second, “We’ll, when we hear about them we do!” Woah, whats next? Little Timmy's lemonade stand? Grandma's homemade blueberry muffins at the church fair? I replied “So EVERY college bake sale and every church bake sale you come across without a permit, you shut it down?” This prompted one of the men to very angrily scold me with “WATCH YOUR TONE!” Wow. I was then told that if I didn’t pack up, quote: “right this second”, they would take my baked goods and “..bring them outside to the dumpster and POUR BLEACH all over them.” This was the first time I had ever heard that city officials can actually remove baked goods from a bake sale and pour harsh, ecologically damaging chemicals over them. I would think that health inspectors would be aware that bleach is extremely bad for your health and the earth, especially when released into the environment.  Either way, we didn’t have a city permit for our small batches of vegan goodies, so we packed things up as instructed… after 20 minutes of hassling and long winded explanations as to how they were doing me a solid by not destroying the cookies and cupcakes. Yeah, thanks for being so nice...

Luckily Moynihan’s Pub was totally understanding and awesome, and let us set up our literature and pass out VegFest flyers afterward. A bunch of kick ass people donated their extra dollars to our VegFest donations jar. Although we could have made $100~200 from the bake sale, its important to note that our main goal was to spread the word about an awesome event and ultimately help animals that are abused and killed in factory farms.

Don’t worry… no food was smashed or destroyed with bleach or otherwise wasted by city officials. The baked goods in question ended up in our bellies and were thoroughly enjoyed. Since we want to be able to have vegan feed-ins and bake sales in the future, VegWorcester will be following up with the bake sale issue and hopefully will be able to get a clear idea of hoe we can go forward on this without being hassled and shut down. Looking forward to seeing where this all leads...

 (back-dated)

VegFest is overrrrrr!

Vegfest was awesome-ness. It was mos def a success with probably over a thousand (if not more) veg-lovin attendees. I spent most of the day workin' one of the VegWorcester tables and had a chance to talk with a lot of humans interested in veg food and animal rights. People seemed to be having a super fantastic time overall, and the sample tables were extremely busy. I took a lot of digital photos, which are being uploaded to the VegWorcester fan photos section of the facebook page.

Udupi for a post-VegFest dinner

Just had a delicious post-VegFest gathering at Udupi with some of the other VegFest volunteers/exhibitors. Udupi is described on their website as "authentic southern Indian vegetarian cuisine." It is located on Route 9 in Shrewsbury, MA. Lots of tasty veg options, most of which I have yet to try. The place was packed and everyone apparently loves the samosas- me included.

Leafletting & Outreach @ Worcester State College

Here is my "report-back" posted on the VegWorcester website about our experience leaftletting @ WSC today:
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"RAISING AWARENESS ABOUT FACTORY FARMING AND HYPING THE VEGFEST AT WORCESTER STATE (OUTREACH)

Manda, Erica, Mike and Drew were at Worcester State College today getting the word out about the upcoming VegFest scheduled for April 17th in the WSC Student Center! We put up 15 VegFest posters on campus bulletins and gave 30 posters to residence life to be posted in the dorms this week. Along with VegFest flyers, we handed out Vegan Outreach booklets about factory farming and compassion for animals. We passed out around 150 booklets and flyers to students during class changes and outside of the Student Center before lunch time.

One student leaving class from the Science & Technology building told us she is not vegetarian but curious about it. She had already responded to the VegFest Facebook invite and would be attending along with a friend who is already vegan. We were happy to know that the word is getting out! Another student simply walked the rest of the way to class with his head down, closely examining the Vegan Outreach booklet, surely impacted by the disturbing images of factory farming conditions. A few people who we gave flyers to said they weren’t vegetarian, but we assured them that VegFest is open to everyone as a great way to start learning more about how to help end cruelty to animals and of course to check out the variety of delicious veg food available locally!

We’re hoping that some of the Worcester State College students we met on campus today will come check out the amazing speakers, free food, fun and music on April 17th!"

Promoting Worcester's VegFest

Spent the evening with some other VegWorcester peeps- broke into teams and plastered VegFest fliers all over Woo town. I personally got both sides of Park Ave covered and the Worcester State College area of Chandler St. Had some delicious vegan pizza afterwards - a good night overall.

VegFest fliers

Handed out VegFest flyers and Why Vegan booklets with Drew at the Four Year Strong show last night at the Palladium. It was a sold out show, but there were only like 50 people in line outside so we didn't cover much ground, but made a few connections either way. The Buddha Hut vegan buffet is this Saturday and apparently there will be more fliers printed up for everyone to grab a stack! Getting together again with VegWorcester peeps soon to make more banners and stuff to promote VegFest, so hopefully the good word is gettin out ;)

VegFest Volunteer Work Party

Spent the evening with a handful of VegWorcester peoples making banners & signs for Vegfest! It was quite fun. Vegfest is on April 17th @ WSC!, so ignore the mistake on one poster that says 3-17. It will be fixed!

VegFest Volunteer Work Party

I headed over to to the first VegFest volunteer work party tonight to prepare materials to promote Worcester's first "Veg Fest!" There was yummy vegan ice cream & snacks thanks to Drew & Kaylee. Snapped a couple photos which can be seen at the VegWorcester Facebook page here, and got super hyped - Going to do what I can to help get the word out around town. Vegfest will be on April 17th!