Jasmine Westerdahl has been involved in promoting vegetarian nutrition and cooking classes in various communities most of her life in both Hawaii and California, including assisting in doing vegan cooking on a television show in Hawaii called Tasty and Meatless. Jasmine is the youth representative and coordinator for her church health committee. She volunteers and coordinates other youth in assisting with community vegetarian cooking classes and lectures.

Patricia Bragg from the Bragg Live Foods Company said, “For the past seven years, Jasmine has been an enthusiastic volunteer for both the Bragg Live Food Products Company and our nonprofit Bragg Health Foundation. For our health product company, Jasmine has represented Bragg at national health food industry trade shows and conferences. She has professionally educated consumers and health food retailers about our line of vegan food products. She also helped test recipes for our vegetarian cookbook and assisted in evaluating new vegan/vegetarian food and beverage product formulations for our company, so that they could be kid tested. Volunteering for our nonprofit foundation, Jasmine represented us at community health education events, lectures and seminars, fairs, and our exhibit booths.” (Also, Jasmine assisted The Vegetarian Resource Group at our booth during the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Annual Meeting and we witnessed firsthand her knowledgeable and professional demeanor.)

Jasmine attended a Seventh-day Adventist school. She said that more than half of her school’s student body are not vegetarian, but she has had the opportunity to educate her classmates about vegetarian diets. A faculty member stated, “Jasmine always is volunteering and helping with community outreach through helping educate about nutrition throughout the community. She is always first to help and last to stay. A leader to me is not always the loudest person but the person who works hard for no credit but to do the right thing. This is in essence Jasmine.”

As a lifelong vegan, Jasmine said, “I have a passion to continue my education through college and university in nutrition with a strong desire to one day be a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist who specializes in vegetarian nutrition to my patients and clients. I believe in vegetarian nutrition for both health reasons as well as for the compassion for animals.”

The deadline for the next Vegetarian Resource Group Scholarship for graduating high school seniors is February 20, 2017. For details, go to http://www.vrg.org/student/scholar.htm

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