You loved the VEGGIE PRIDE PARADE. It's time to show it.

PLEASE CROSS POST

Let me guess: you loved this year's Veggie Pride Parade, which took place in May:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/

You had a great time. You might even say, you felt elated to walk in the parade
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/veggiepride2009/DSC04502sm.jpg

...and to enjoy the festivities in Union Square Park later.
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/images/parkwideshot.jpg

(Note: we're up and running for another parade in 2010.)

Now it's time to put your money where your sentiment is:

Give back to the organization that gave it all to you: VivaVegie Society, 501(c)3
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/donations.htm

See all that the parade's organizer did to put the show on the road:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/pamelascontribution.htm

Here's your chance, before 2009 comes to a close, to do the right thing and to get a tax deduction at the same time.

Remember: Veggie Pride Parade NYC won the coveted
VegNews's Veggie Award two years in a row (2 for 2).
(And you have this event right in your back yard!)
Go to:
Favorite Veg Event (readers' choice): Veggie Pride Parade, NYC (2009)
http://www.vegnews.com/web/articles/page.do?pageId=1069&catId=6
Event of the Year (editor's choice): NYC's Veggie Pride Parade (2008)
http://www.vegnews.com/web/articles/page.do?pageId=143&catId=6

VivaVegie Society is not your average veggie group. Who else can say they brought together 35 exhibitors and over a dozen speakers to a post-parade rally & expo? ... including:

Exhibitors:
American Vegan Society, Catskill Animal Sanctuary, Earthsave, F.A.R.M., Farm Sanctuary, HSUS, Mercy for Animals, PeTA, United Poultry Concerns, Vegan Outreach, Vegetarian Resource Group, & Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary.

See images and links for all 35 exhibitors at:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/exhibitors.htm

Speakers:
Paul Shapiro, HSUS, J.P. Vaswani, Sadhu Vaswani Mission, Peter Anderson, Future Leaders Institute, Marianne Thieme member of the House of Representatives in the Netherlands, Tony Avella, New York city councilman from Queens' 19th district, Cheryl Hill, entertainer, Karen Davis, Ph.D., United Poultry Concerns, Joan Wai, Youth Buddhism Communications, Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D., president of the Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA), Christine Vardaros, world-class vegan cyclist, Mickey Z, vegan author, speaker, activist, & Dave Warwak, poet, and writer, former tenured middle school art teacher.

See all 13 speakers at:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/bios.htm

The Veggie Pride Parade Web site offers a treasure trove of information:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/

Please visit the following Web pages and see why if you're giving end-of-the-year support to your favorite veg groups, you need to give to VivaVegie Society. Please be generous:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/donations.htm

Place an ad in the 2010 program guide:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/program.2010.htm
(Early-bird discounts available now.)

Sponsors' page:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/sponsors.htm
(Donation over $300)

Volunteers' page:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/media.htm

Donate a prize to the 2010 costume contest:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/contests.htm

Here's how you can volunteer for the 2010 Veggie Pride Parade
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tzHsWX2dhre1gjpIDSrr1qw&output=html

Images from the 2009 Veggie Pride Parade:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/images.htm

Veggie Pride Parade blog:
http://www.vivavegie.org/prideblog/index.html

Veggie Pride Parade bulletin board
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/media.htm

Media coverage:
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/dept/bulletin.htm

REPORT OMISSIONS, ERRORS:
mailto:pamela@vivavegie.org
212-242-0011

We got our wide-angle crowd shots

Success! We now have our wide-angle crowd shots of not only the parade but the post-parade rally & expo in Union Square Park. We had about 700 marchers (we counted them with a hand-held clicker). But once we reached the park, our numbers easily grew to a thousand. In the park, we had 40 hand-picked exhibitors, over a dozen inspiring speakers from a wide constituency of veg-adherence, free vegan food, and a super-fun costume contest with 18 prizes donated from a healthy bevy of veggie businesses. Click image at right to see larger version of the park crowd shot. Click on it for an even larger image.

Documenting Veggie Pride Parade, NYC, 2009. Your help needed

Our parade was an incredible success! We had 38 exhibitors, over a dozen speakers (including NYC mayoral candidate Tony Avella), 7 booths with free vegan food, live music from vegan singer/songwriter Cheryl Hill, and an incredible costume contest award ceremony!

Now we need to go about the task of documenting the day.

We're adding image-set links to our images page; and we're tracking down media stories and blog posts.

Report in to the Veggie Pride Parade planning committee with your link sitings of interest. We will post to our Web site. Contact, Pamela at info@vivavegie.org

2009 program guide is now available

The Veggie Pride Parade Program guide is now posted to the Veggie Pride Parade Web site. Find a schedule of events, a list of speakers, a list of exhibitors, a list of prize donor for the costume contest, an essay by vegan historian Rynn Berry, and, of course, ads from vegan organizations and businesses from all over the region.

Click HERE to go to where you can download a PDF of the entire guide.

Speakers, entertainers set for Veggie Pride Parade, NYC, 2009

	Paul Shapiro is the senior director of the factory farming campaign of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). He has spearheaded numerous successful campaigns on behalf of farmed animals. He directs the effort to convince retailers, food service providers, and universities to expand their vegan options. Prior to working for HSUS, Paul founded Compassion Over Killing (COK), where he helped lead campaigns such as the successful effort to end the use of the misleading "Animal Care Certified" logo on battery-cage egg cartons nationwide. At COK, Paul worked as a farmed-animal cruelty investigator, primarily documenting conditions on egg and broiler factory farms, livestock auctions, and slaughter plants. He will bring our parade crowd to life with his powerful oratory abilities.
	J.P. Vaswani is one of India's most recognized nonsectarian spiritual leaders and the head of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission. For the past 43 years, Dada, as he is affectionately known, has been a tireless advocate for animal rights and non-violence. He is the author of over 100 books, many in multiple translations. Cultivating his ideals from his mentor and guru Sadhu T.L. Vaswani, who it the founder of the mission that carries his name, he is today an accomplished orator, philosopher, educationalist, and philanthropist. Dada has held audience with the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, and Pope John Paul II, as well as other prominent world leaders. His message of global harmony and peace has captivated audiences at the World Parliament of Religions, the British House of Commons, and the UN World Peace Summit. Dada lives in Pune, India, where he oversees the multi-faceted charitable programs of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission. Dada is forever there to speak for the defenseless, which of course includes all the animals on Earth.
	Peter Anderson is the principal of Future Leaders Institute, a progressive charter school in Harlem. He's worked in education for over 15 years and holds graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and New York University. For the kids, the emphasis is on leadership training and character development. "Go hard or go home," are words he lives by and projects at every opportunity. And part of what he passes along at his school: the wisdom of healthy eating. Partnering with New York Coalition for Healthy School Food (NYCHSF), they provide 2 plant-based meals per week prepared at the school by Chef Jorge from Candle 79 Restaurant. Each month NYCHSF hosts a Family Dinner Night with a plant-based meal, hands on learning activities, and a cooking demo. "True education is holistic," says Anderson.
	Marianne Thieme is a member of the House of Representatives in the Netherlands and the leader of her party, the Party for the Animals. She is the on-stage narrator for the pro-vegan DVD Meat The Truth, which presents a hard-hitting but popular presentation of the vegan environmental arguments, emphasizing, in particular, livestock's heavy influence on global warming. Ms. Thieme's career in animal protection began as a fauna consultant for the Dutch Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Recently, she became the director of Stichting Wakker Dier, an organization that campaigns for the abolition of the factory farming industry. In her capacity as director of this organization, the agricultural magazine Farm proclaimed Ms. Theime the most influential woman in the Netherlands with respect to the social and economic position of farmers.
	Cheryl Hill returns to the big city from her current home on Austin, Texas, where her entrepreneurial spirit is marketing vegan smoothie recipes, spearheading publishing projects, and playing gigs with the band that bears her name. She will entertain us with her operatically trained voice and poignant chords and lyrics. Cheryl is the composer of our parade's awesome theme song, Get Your Green On. Cheryl is one hot guitar player, but New Yorkers may also remember her as the wise woman of Vegan Wellness TV. Visit her Web site: www.cherylhill.com
	Tony Avella is a New York city councilman from Queens' 19th district. He heads five council committees and is a leading advocate of animal rights and animal welfare in city government. The 2007 scorecard of the NYC League of Humane Voters gave Tony a 100 percent rating, but it might as well have been 110 percent. He's taken heroic stands in, no-less, leadership rolls with the Horse Drawn Carriage Ban, the Pets in Housing bill, and humane education in the city's schools.
	Karen Davis, Ph.D. is president and founder of United Poultry Concerns. She is the founding editor of UPC's quarterly magazine Poultry Press and the author of numerous books including Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs. Ms. Davis maintains a sanctuary for rescued poultry birds in Virginia. She in an inductee to the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame. Since 1999, Ms. Davis and UPC have hosted eight annual conferences on farmed-animal advocacy issues. At www.upc-online.org/karenbio.htm one can find a seemingly endless list of Ms. Davis's victories and accomplishments as she has for so many years worked on behalf of what society casually relegates to the "lowest of the low" (modern poultry birds).
	Joan Wai is the founder and chief executive director of Youth Buddhism Communications, a New York City-based group fully committed to compassionate meatless living. She is the organizer of the 1,000-strong all-vegan banquet put on by the group every year. She is also the director of a community center run by the organization.
	Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D. is professor emeritus at the College of Staten Island. He is the author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, Judaism and Global Survival, and Mathematics and Global Survival, and over 130 articles at JewishVeg.com/schwartz. He is the president of the Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) and the Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV). He is the associate producer of A Sacred Duty, a powerful, pro-vegan DVD production. He is director of Veg Climate Alliance. Dr. Schwartz may be reached at president@JewishVeg.com.
	Christine Vardaros is a world-class vegan cyclist. She's writes fitness columns for VegNews magazine, Cyclo-Cross magazine, and the Marin Independent Journal. She is an official spokesperson for In Defense of Animals, a founding member of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, and is a member of the athlete's advisory board for the Stone Foundation for Sports Medicine and Arthritis Research. And she's never owned a car.
	Mickey Z will wax eloquent in poetry and prose in his most inimitable style at the post Veggie Pride Parade rally and expo. Proudly armed with his high school diploma, born and raised in Astoria, New York, part working class, part radical vegan, Mickey Z is probably the only person on the planet to have appeared in both a karate flick with Billy Blanks and a political book with Noam Chomsky. He has been a vegan for 14 years and can be found on the Web at www.mickeyz.net. Look for his blog posts at Plant Green (planetgreen.discovery.com/tv).
	Dave Warwak is a meditator, philosopher, humanitarian, artist, musician, poet, and writer. Formerly a tenured middle school art teacher, he became an animal rights activist after he was notoriously fired for teaching kindness, i.e.: veganism, to his students. Warwak's mission has since been tell children the truth about our world. Read trial transcripts that document his fight to keep his job, which includes testimony by T. Colin Campbell, in Peep Show for Children Only. Dave will perform the baby-vegetable (children in vegetable costumes) naming ceremony on stage after the parade at the post-parade rally and expo.
	Pamela Rice is the author of "101 Reasons Why I'm a Vegetarian"—both book and pamphlet. She is the founding director of the Vegetarian Center of NYC and the organizer for this event. She is the founding director of the VivaVegie Society (www.vivavegie.org), the parade's sponsoring group. She is also the erstwhile publisher of The VivaVine: The Vegetarian Issues Magazine. Pamela will award prizes for best costume and signboard contest at the post-parade rally and expo.

A slight change of plans, but we're happy for that

Due to scheduled construction at Washington Square Park (Teen Plaza), THE VEGGIE PRIDE PARADE has been bumped, but we like the situation just fine! The end point for the May 17, 2009 parade will be Union Square Park (north end) instead. See and click image at left to see where we will be in the park. (Of course, the Green Market, shown in the image, will not be there the day we set up.)

This is a spectacularly excellent development, and, it happens, we got the venue plopped right in our lap.

There also is construction going on now right at this, the Union Square, location, but it will be finished well before May 17, we have been assured by Sarah Frazier of NYC Parks. We will be one of the first groups to get to use the renovated area. Ultimately, it should be downright lovely! But more than this, we'll be able to have all the noise and participants we want. Washington Square Park actually has strict limits on noise level and crowd size. We surely are going to be much bigger this year and years to come, so we'll need the extra elbow room.

Veggie Pride Parade 2009 is on. Time to mark your calendar

Veggie Pride Parade 2009 is on. Mark your calendar for Sunday, May 17, 2009. VivaVegie Society, the sponsoring organization, is hard at work putting together the details so New York City can have a repeat of this successful event, which first hit the scene in 2008. Now is a good time to re-visit the Veggie Pride Parade Web site. Enjoy!