Franck is from France and taking time off from his professional
career so he can learn about vegetarianism in America, as well as improve
his English. His goal is to use his skills and the knowledge learned from
volunteering to promote veganism in France.

Well, this was my first exhibition with The Vegetarian Resource Group. I
was quite anxious about my capacity to be understood by all these people.
The familial atmosphere and the sunny weather sure helped.

Our booth was located just next to one selling vegan pastries…What a
coincidence. And it’d been (extremely) difficult to resist all the day.

A lot of people stopped by our booth. Many were already vegetarian or
vegan. Some who weren’t vegetarian at all used to have a friend or a
relative that was. Or they thought with reason that they could lose weight
and get healthier that way. With Ann-Marie, we tried to comfort them and to
emphasize that they should aim for a few vegetarian meals a week first, and
of course check the vrg.org site to find information and recipes.

There were many people that were interested in what we were doing and even
upon arrival in the morning, the Baltimore HampdenFest coordinator said how
excited everyone was that VRG was setting up for today. There were many
festival-goers that stopped, veg*n and not, that wanted more information
and support, and we were able to provide that. Most of them were
Baltimoreans who wanted to get involved with VRG in one way or another.

Most of the question were about recipes and the activities of VRG. The
books, brochures and especially the guide to the vegetarian restaurants
were incredibly successful. More than 40 people subscribed to our email
list.

Unfortunately, but this was predictable, we had no questions about ethics
nor environment and only a very few about nutritional facts (protein myth,
B12).

It was overall a great day and we look forward to the next HampdenFest!

If you would like to volunteer to help with vegetarian outreach, please
e-mail Jack at [email protected].