March-April-May 2011 in Vegas

Vegas Veg has two fantastic vegan education opportunities coming up: Bark in the Park and Pet-a-Palooza! Both are large companion-animal themed events, the first is organized by the City of Henderson and the second is organized by MIX 94.1 radio station. Vegas Veg will hve a booth at each event wherein we will offer FREE vegan food to the public along with educational booklets.

BARK IN THE PARK
Bark in the Park draws over 5000 people. About 5-10% are expected to stop by our booth and learn more about veganism. That means we'll reach about 250 to 500 people with a tasty, friendly compassionate message. According to some estimates, about 1-2% of those people will go vegetarian or vegan as a direct result, which means that for a few hours of effort we can create 2 to 5 new veg*ns. That might not sound like a lot at first, but remember that each veg*n spares about 40 animals a lifetime of misery each year they are veg, that adds up to 80 to 200 animals spared each year as a result of just a few hours of advocacy!

BARK IN THE PARK event details:
Date: Saturday, March 5, 2011
Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Location: Paseo Verde Park, 1851 Paseo Verde Pkwy, Henderson, Nevada.
Participation is free for all ages. There will be activities for people and their dogs, including demonstrations, educational booths, contests, products, services, and animal adoptions. During 11am - 1pm we will be giving out FREE samples of vegan food, such as cookies and finger sandwiches. If you are not vegan, please take this opportunity to try some vegan food. Thanks to Vegan Outreach for sponsoring our booth so we can get the non-profit rate. Thanks to VegFund for paying for renting the tent so we can be shaded/ protected from wind and rain.

PET-A-PALOOZA
Pet-a-Palooza is THE largest "pet" event in Nevada. Take the math above and multiply it by 3! The Vegas Veg booth is expected to create about 6 to 15 new veg*ns and save about 240 to 600 animals for every year those people are veg.

PET-A-PALOOZA event details:
DATE: Saturday, March 5, 2011
TIME: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
LOCATION: Star Nursery Fields at Sam Boyd Stadium, Las Vegas, Nevada.
There will be tons of great LIVE MUSIC, pet adoptions, activities and more. It generally costs about $5 per person to attend this event. As I recall, there's a discount if you bring a pet food donation. During 11am - 3pm we plan to give out FREE samples of vegan food. Thanks to VegFund, we can have a booth! VegFund kindly sponsored our booth. And thanks to Vegan Outreach for providing the literature.

If you can come to these events and stop by the Vegas Veg booths, please do. And bring a nonvegfriend, too

Yesterday we did our "feed-in" booth at Bark in the Park.

We gave out free vegan peanut butter cookies, chocolate almond milk, vanilla soy milk, chocolate cupcakes, lemon cupcakes, egg-less egg salad sandwiches, tofurky sandwiches, tofuti cuties, savory pastry puffs, and more! We also got food donated from two vegan catering businesses and from volunteers. Ed and I made and bought 300 food samples and got funding for that from VegFund. We had at least 500 vegan food samples total.

Many people sampled the food. We ran out of food by the end of the day, so that means it was well received. Many people remarked things like "wow, I didn't know tofu could taste so good," or "these are great!" and many asked for recipes.

We had 6 volunteers lined up for the day. But on the day of the event we had many people show up wanting to help. So we put them to work handing out food samples or literature. Overall, the volunteers were very happy and enthusiastic. And they helped ensure that anyone who came anywhere near our booth received a CC pamphlet. Afterwards, Ed commented that one volunteer who comes out to the colleges with me, Christina, is "a leafleting machine!"

Pictures are online here:
http://www.meetup.com/vegasveg/photo...lbumId=1291012

Here are the upcoming events for Vegas Veg from NOW through April 2011...
Two VERY important events first:

*** March 27 - Vegan bake sale to raise money for Japan!!! Come to Atomic #7 in Henderson between 12pm - 4pm to get your goodies for a good cause!!! ***

*** April 9 - Vegan education: FREE vegan food and info at Pet-a-palooza! ALL DAY! (contact me to volunteer to help) ***

Now here's the list of ALL events coming up:

Today! March 23 @ 7pm - Vegas Vegan Drinks @ Yayo Taco
March 26 @ 1pm - Vegan Chef Mayra has a demo at Henderson Whole Foods
March 27 @ 12pm until 4pm - Vegan bake sale to raise money for Japan!
March 29 @ 6pm - Organizational meeting at Town Square Whole Foods
March 30 @ 5:45pm - Veg dinner at Long Life Vegetarian restaurant
April 9 - Pet-a-palooza
April 10 @ 10am - vegan donuts at Ronald's
April 11 - Leaflet at UNLV (contact me, Elaine, for details)
April 23 - Green Living Family Expo (need volunteers!)
April 23 - NPAA meeting/event (need volunteers!)
April 27 - Vegas Vegan Drinks

Events are listed on the community calendar for Vegas Veg here:
http://www.meetup.com/vegasveg/#calendar

Thanks for all you do as a vegan, vegetarian, or part-time veg*n! You're helping animals, the planet, and your health with ever veg meal!