Last weekend West Coast Coordinator, Allie Gunter, traveled to Oxnard, California to attend the first-ever RescueCon. This very vegan-friendly event featured a variety of activities, vendors, and speakers (including one of Food for Thought’s very own endorsers, The Kitten Lady!). There was bunny yoga, a cat cafe, adoptable companion animals, rescued mini horses, and even a dog running for president!
To further top off an already amazing weekend showcasing the special connection between humans and nonhuman animals, all of the food at RescueCon was 100% plant-based! From the food trucks (which offered pizza and burgers and cupcakes - oh my!) to the nightly Yappy Hour, the bites were a hit!
Both evenings at Yappy Hour served as another opportunity for Food for Thought to share our work with all of the attendees while they enjoyed delicious, vegan cheese generously donated by Miyoko's. (Thank you, Miyoko's!) This relaxed wine and cheese event served as a perfect example of just how easy it can be to put on a completely plant-based event for your own organization's next fundraiser.
Conventions and conferences are always a great opportunity to not only share the mission of the Food for Thought campaign with the public but to also connect and network with other organizations and potential Advocates. Allie was able to speak with many different nonprofits and Southern California locals about the need for animal, wildlife, and environmental organizations to adopt animal- and earth-friendly menu policies for their events. It is always motivating to see it "click" in people’s minds that serving some animals as food in order to raise money to save other animals really doesn’t make any sense at all.
If you are involved with a nonprofit that you would like to see adopt a formal menu policy, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We offer a variety of free resources, including grant opportunities, to help make the transition as simple as possible!
