Bay Area Vegetarians

Rumor has it that Lu Lai Garden in Milpitas will be closing on November 24th for good. Watch this space for an update.

The latest and greatest in San Francisco Bay Area veg news & events … Check out the October BAVeg news, now available!

Read it online –

http://www.bayareaveg.org/newsletters/BAV-News-Oct2007.htm

or subscribe to have it delivered directly to your inbox.

http://bayareaveg.org/join.htm

Just wanted to thank all of you who supported the 10/13 SF Walk for Farm Animals benefitting Farm Sanctuary.

In particular, thank you to those who signed up for our team, “Animals are Friends, not Food”: Summer, Laura, Doug AnnaLise, Monica, Alexandra, Scott, Linda, Robin, Rebecca, Ariel, Justin, Sarah, Winnie, Lori, and organizers Tammy & Chris.

The idea to have a BAVeg team was a mere month before the event started, and this was the first time we had ever organized a team for an event like this. And it was actually only 2 weeks before when we finally sent out our first organizing email.

Team Name: Animals are Friends, not Food
Organization Name: Bay Area Vegetarians
Team Online Total: $1,846.00

BAVeg also donated 2 Ultimate Guides for the Farm Sanctuary walk, one went to Scott as our team’s top fundraiser and the second was a raffle prize available to the general walk participants.

If you would like to lead the BAVeg team for next year, please email Tammy .

This event has been postponed until next week due to the Bernal Hill Festival (as Cortland Ave will be closed off today).

What: Sundaes and Advocacy

Where: SF (MaggieMudd)

When: 10/29/07 Sunday, 3:00 pm
Host: Dana
RSVP: http://www.bayareaveg.org/rsvp.htm?id=1715

Full Details:
http://www.bayareaveg.org/events.htm?EID=1715#1715

Sometimes the pen can be mightier than the sword as PETA says. Please join your fellow veg*n advocates at the newest Bay Area Veg Letter Writing Party, Sundaes and Advocacy. Enjoy a fabulous vegan sundae at MaggieMudd and let your voice count. Letters to newspaper editors, legislators and businesses can effect change.

There will be a variety of issues each month. You can choose the issues that are most important to you. New ideas are always welcome!

We will be meeting on the third Sunday of each month at 3:00 p.m. at MaggieMudd in Bernal Heights.

Please bring the names of your State & Federal legislators. If you don’t know who they are, you can find them at http://votesmart.org. Pens, paper and envelopes will be provided, but feel free to personalize it and bring your own.

Please RSVP by the day before the event so we can ensure there are enough letter writing supplies.

If you can’t make this event, check the calendar for upcoming Sundaes and Advocacy Events.

Hope to see you there!

New vegan lunch place in Mountain View. Simple Falafels to-go or delivered.

Sheese, a vegan cheeze made in Scotland, has reached the shores of California! It is now available in San Francisco at the Real Food Company (Polk and Broadway).

The US distributor for Sheese is Black Duck Imports.

Thanks to Joelle for sharing this news.

Golden Era 2 has just changed it’s name to Golden Buddha. Same menu just a different name.

New Whole Foods in Oakland near Lake Merritt.

New “Vegetarian” restaurant in the heart of Napa.

From the chef “[We are a] vegetable restaurant rather than a vegetarian restaurant. We’re not offering a philosophy of “no meat,” rather, we are celebrating what comes from the gardens, what shows up at the door and our relationships with farms in Napa”

Leafleting is a great outreach activity that can take as little as 5 minutes to 5 hours. From my personal experience, working full-time is not an impediment to leafleting, as there opportunities on your lunch hour or the weekend, etc. In 5 minutes while waiting for a BART train, I’ve passed out 20 leaflets. And age is not an issue — we’ve had volunteers younger than 10, and five times 10.

The following 3 events represent over 4,000 leaflets distributed.

9/29 Fog Fest Parade in Pacifica
The Cow, The Chicken, and the Human
700 PETA VSKs — in an hour.

The Cow, The Chicken, and the Human – who said what?

“Free Recipes!”
“Chicken-approved recipes!”

“Cow-friendly recipes!”

The last two are new pitch lines that we tried, reinforcing the presence of animals and what type of recipes a chicken or cow would approve and find friendly. We overheard conversations as adults would take the booklet (which prominently says Vegetarian on the cover) and then make the connection. Kids asked their Mom what that meant. Others specifically saw the recipes said Vegetarian and asked for one for themselves, or for friends.

This was just a typical festival in a small town, population 40K, so we were pleased with the overall receptiveness of everyone we approached. I had originally anticpated bringing only 500 leaflets so quite happy we had extra and distributed 700.

Logistics: for anyone considering parade leafleting – if you’re doing more than a backpack worth, you need a way to transport the literature. It works best if you have a person handling lit transport and others for leafleting. From previous parade experience, we learned that some marketing helps. Thanks to Amy & Tammy who wore cow & chicken costumes respectively, and to Ann, who wore a Vegan message t-shirt and carted the the 120 lbs of literature on an industrial-strength cart. By following us, she was also able to distribute leaflets to people who changed their minds and wanted one.

9/21 HeartWalk SF

Sue single-handedly leafleted this lunchtime, weekday event distributing over 325 Why Vegans. This is an annual event, so if you work in the downtown area and want to get involved next year, let us know.

9/8 Power to the Peaceful Concert in San Francisco
Ari, Nora, Alex, Amy, Tammy, Sergei + Shelly, Collin + son, Mari, and others!
2,150 Vegan Outreach Try Vegetarian, Why Vegan & Even If You Like Meat
1,000 PETA VSKs

Ari wrote this great summary below:

I’ve never had so many people tell me they were already vegan. I’ve also never met so many people who told me they were formerly vegan. One person told me they had not eaten any meat since they got an EI at a recent A’s game (they didn’t even read it, just saw the cover). Nice going Victor!

One interesting encounter:

Ari: Bring peace to every meal

Them: I really feel bad for the animals, but humans have always eaten them

Ari: Humans have also always raped and murdered. However, humans have also shown the capability to act with compassion and kindness. I bet you prefer humans act from their benevolence then their malevolence, just as I do.

Them: OK, I’ll take a look at it

Logistics: Thanks to Ari for transporting dozens of boxes of literature to the event. It is quite a physical feat as the literature boxes weigh up to 30 lbs each for the VSKs. Above is basically a count of what Ari brought and a few that I had stuffed in my backpack, but we think others also brought literature too