Notes from the Coordinators
Young Vegan Volunteers
Many of our members became vegetarian or vegan over 20, 30, or 40 years ago. We remember when if you wanted soymilk, you had to order soy powder through the mail or make your own. If you were lucky enough to live in a progressive area or region with Asian grocers, you may have found tofu sold in a bucket of water. Not many of us would want to scoop from the communal basket during the pandemic. And we remember some of our early members making soysage and cashew milk at home.
There have been so many changes over the decades, but especially in the past few years. While we have come far, vegans are only about three percent of the population, and we still have a long trek ahead of us. This is why we are so thankful for the next generation of activists who are involved in VRG.
Thank you to high school volunteer extraordinaire Lucía Rivera. During the past year she has undertaken tasks from looking up eateries for our restaurant guide; to snapping photos for Instagram, Vegetarian Journal, and our blog; to being interviewed for a radio program; and researching eating vegan in college. With her Spanish skills equal to her English ability, she has checked our Spanish translations as well as translated articles. As one person collaborating with her on a project said, “Working with Luc??a was very easy. She was very responsible, kind, and hard working. Our communication was always efficient.”
Thank you to former VRG intern Laura, who continues to put together our VRG-News email newsletter; wrote Vegetarian Journal articles on seitan, fermenting food, and decorating cakes; and will now be assisting with HTML for the website.
Whitney, another former intern, for several years organized outreach booths and edited our email newsletter. Beginning a new kind of activism, she now has vegan toddlers and brought them to our in-service for 10 University of Maryland non-vegetarian nutrition interns. The practical demonstration and talk from Whitney totally engaged the students and left them with information for future clients.
For a college photojournalism class, Rissa Miller did a photo for a Vegetarian Journal cover. We of course assigned her an impossible project to take a picture of vegan ice cream, which is very difficult to do as it's melting. Now Rissa is VJ Senior Editor, and also takes beautiful photos for the VRG Instagram account she manages. She has unlimited ideas for future articles and projects.
Look for our national poll on the number of young vegans in the U.S. and our college scholarship winners later in the year. Thank you to all our volunteers and donors who help guide and create future activists.
Debra Wasserman & Charles Stahler
Coordinators of The Vegetarian
Resource Group
