By Hannah Greene

My internship at The Vegetarian Resource Group has been absolutely life-changing! From the minute I walked into The VRG, Co-Coordinators Charles and Debra were so welcoming. I couldn’t stop smiling after my first day of work! I had been nervous to start this new job, but they made me feel instantly at home. Each day, they offer advice and tell stories, and the office is always full of laughter. I have learned so much about the vegan movement, and also about the nonprofit world as a whole. I learned about the book and magazine publishing industries, the analysis needed to understand statistics truthfully, the politics of agriculture, and a lot of other important life lessons.

We’ve had stimulating conversations about ethical dilemmas in the animal rights movement and all sorts of thought-provoking questions.

Highlights of my internship were… everything! This was the first job that I have looked forward to every single day. I spent each day feeling excited about articles I was writing, intrigued by all that I learned, and even more inspired to make change in the world. I loved learning about the environment and the importance of veganism, and sharing this knowledge with others in creative ways. I gained experience writing articles for the website, sharing vegan meals, and planning presentations and outreach booths. I found new understanding of the nonprofit world, which I’m sure will inspire me for years to come.

Our outreach work reached someone I hadn’t expected– me! When I first started at VRG, I was vegetarian, but now that I have learned more about veganism, I am committed to the vegan lifestyle.

I connected with so many inspiring people during my internship. During our outreach booth at Waverly Farmers Market, I interacted with countless fellow Baltimoreans, from lifelong vegans to people newly interested in eating less meat. Later, we visited a longtime friend of VRG at his homemade wildlife preserve. On his 23-acre protected land, we saw beautiful birds, chipmunks, and trees. His interesting stories inspired me for a lifetime of activism and service to the world.

Amy and I gave a presentation at Tuttie’s Place, a group home for foster children in Baltimore City, with a lesson plan designed to inspire and empower the students to think about the impact of what they choose to eat. We played a game using a six-foot-diameter My Vegan Plate we had made to teach them about healthy eating. I enjoyed designing a coloring book to inspire children to be activists for the issues they care about.

By far the most challenging task was sampling delicious food for Veggie Bits articles! I got to try vegan microwavable meals, millet tots, vegan pizza pockets, millet medleys, fig “salami,” and vegan cream cheese! Researching vegan restaurants for write-ups in the restaurant guide was informative practice for researching and communicating information. Recording these exposed me to new fields of writing.

One of the most exciting parts of my internship has been interviewing vegans and vegetarians in the field of public health. I dream of working in global health, and networking with these people was a valuable opportunity – plus I loved acting as a journalist and writing about their fascinating stories!

Writing an article on vegan Malaysian recipes combined a lot of things I’m passionate about – veganism, cooking, travel writing, and Malaysia! After my amazing year-long experience living in Malaysia as an exchange student, I was excited to share my knowledge of this culture with readers of a future issue of Vegetarian Journal. This was a valuable opportunity to spread cultural awareness and exciting new recipes.

I enjoyed writing articles about vegan snack options for field hockey players and other athletes, and about starting a vegetarian group in high school. Hopefully these articles will inspire other teens to embrace veganism fully and to be activists for the issues they care about!

This internship was particularly fulfilling because of all the community service I was able to do. One of the most challenging but rewarding opportunities has been helping to create a vegan meal plan that fulfills nutrition requirements and meets the financial limits of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. We helped design a vegan meal plan, alter it within a nutrition tracking database, and make a shopping list for a family of four. After that, we visited a supermarket in a Baltimore neighborhood to check prices for ingredients. Finding that even the staples added up to be too expensive, we continued to modify recipes to cost less and still fulfill daily nutrition requirements. It is difficult to find any SNAP meal plans at all, so this vegan one should be particularly impactful.

Making six large vegan casseroles for Our Daily Bread was another fulfilling way to give back to the Baltimore community. Cooking on a large scale was a new adventure, and the seven hours spent cooking was a fun bonding opportunity with the other intern, Amy, who is now one of my best friends!

I am so thankful to Charles, Debra, Amy, Gene, Rissa, and everyone else I have met through my work at The VRG. Each of you made it uniquely fun, rewarding, and enjoyable, and working among like-mind fellow vegans was a real privilege. It was so nice to meet people who share my passion for making the world a better place. I look forward to many years of continuing to help The Vegetarian Resource Group!

For more information on The Vegetarian Resource Group internships, see: https://www.vrg.org/student/index.php

To support The Vegetarian Resource Group internships, donate at www.vrg.org/donate