By Emily Carter, VRG Intern

Saturday, July 20th some of the VRG gang geared up for Roots Market’s fourth annual vegan festival in Clarksville, MD to spread vegan love! The festival attracted vendors with free samples, as well as outreach groups looking to recruit, inform, and fundraise. The Vegetarian Resource Group booth was situated between Vegetarian Journal Senior Editor Rissa Miller’s booth for Burleigh Manor Animal Sanctuary and a freezer case full of Gardein products that were buy two get one free for the vegan holiday (yes, I left with some). The day was extremely hot with a heat index of 115 degrees, so we were thankful when someone would reach in to grab some plant-based meat and we would get a blast of cool air! 

Dedicated vendors and organizations set up around 9:30 to prepare for a day of vegan activism in the wet Maryland heat. Attendees started showing up around 10, when the doors were to open. Many people arrived early for the swag bag giveaway, for which people waited in a line out the door to receive one of the 100 vegan goodie bags including various snacks and wellness samples. While they waited in line, festival attendees could snack on the various trays of vegan samples situated across the store, including chips and guacamole/salsa, Amy’s new vegan pizza rolls, Hodo products, peanut butter fudge cookies, chocolate covered nuts, and more! 

The sales and samples attracted a lot of people to the festival, in addition to the hot meals being offered by Roots market. Lunch options were a vegan mac and cheese bar with all the toppings and neat-o pies made with corn chips, new Beyond Beef, vegan cheese, sour cream, and green onion. For a sweet treat, they were serving donut sundaes with coconut ice cream and yummy toppings. Thanks to Rissa Miller and her partner Nathaniel Corn for buying Amy and I food throughout the day! We were so happy to get to sample all of the amazing food offered at the festival, especially the decadent donut sundae. 

In addition to all of the informational booths and the seemingly endless food supply, there were other festivities taking place around the festival to celebrate the arts. Rissa had a poetry reading in Nest, a clothing and gift shop near Roots Market, during which she read one of her sections in an all-vegan-authored anthology called Vegan Tales. After the reading, I had to order a copy; I suggest you do as well! In addition to poetry, there was also live music happening throughout the day inside of the cafe within the market. 

The atmosphere was lively, energetic, and engaging despite the heat. By the end of the day, I had gotten used to the heat and still had energy (thank you caffeine!) to pass out copies of the Vegetarian Journal and I Love Animals and Broccoli coloring books. We met many people who wanted to join our email list or volunteer in the future. This was my first time ever attending any sort of all-vegan event, and I was not disappointed! 

Being in a predominately all-vegan audience was nice because I felt there was less chance I would be challenged for my lifestyle. Only one person I engaged with was not vegan or vegetarian, and I think we had a very productive conversation. He came up to our table and pointed to the picture of the cow on the coloring book and said, “You see, those things are causing a lot of environmental damage, which is why we must eat them!” I took this moment to explain supply and demand and how eating the cows creates more supply for them, so we should stop eating them. My favorite part about having booths with the VRG is those moments when you can tell you planted a seed that may save animals in the future. It makes standing out in the 115 degree weather totally worth it. 

For information about Roots Market, see https://rootsmkt.com/

For information about VRG internships, see https://www.vrg.org/student/index.php

To support The Vegetarian Resource Group outreach, donate at https://www.vrg.org/member/2013sv.php