{"id":13672,"date":"2019-06-07T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T13:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=13672"},"modified":"2019-06-04T11:39:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T15:39:35","slug":"lancaster-vegfest-2019-round-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2019\/06\/07\/lancaster-vegfest-2019-round-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Lancaster VegFest 2019 Round Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Rissa Miller, Senior Editor,\nVegetarian Journal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine the word vegan<\/em>\u2026 Picture each letter over four feet tall and three feet wide,\nmade of repurposed wooden planks \u2013 wide enough to stand or sit on if you can\nclimb that high (not that you should ever climb on artwork, by the way). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now imagine that more than 10,000\nfestival-goers were greeted by such a bold, confident, and dramatic\ninstallation on Saturday June 1 at Buchanan Park in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania\nas they entered the grounds of the 3rd<\/sup> annual Lancaster VegFest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of people are talking about\nthis vegan thing and about plant-based,\u201d said Courtney Kokus, festival\nco-organizer. \u201cI see a lot of curiosity and that’s\nwhy I think (the VegFest) is perfect. It\u2019s very welcoming to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kokus and her husband John\norganize the VegFest as volunteers. The first year, 2017, they had 45 vendors\nand about 3,500 attendees. In only three years, those numbers have more than\ntripled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI meet a lot of people\nand not everyone is vegan or even vegetarian or pescetarian. But there\u2019s\ninterest and they want to learn\u201d said John Kokus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In popular culture, Lancaster is\nmostly known as a quiet town in south central Pennsylvania, famous for its\nAmish residents and large agricultural influence. No one might have guessed\nthat in the past few years, a strong grassroots vegan effort has taken hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kokuses reported that\nafter each Lancaster VegFest, they are flooded with emails from Lancaster,\nYork, and Harrisburg area residents, all thanking them for making vegan food\navailable and opening up the dialog. Most of those emails are from non-vegans,\nthey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year the festival had more than\n140 vendors and over 50 of those were selling vegan food. Delicious options\nranged from the elegant cakes and cannolis of Vegan Treats to loaded vegan hot\ndogs at Yeah Dawg to ZWild Vegans\u2019 kale salad and sandwiches. While it\u2019s a\nclich\u00e9 to say there was something for everyone, really, there was something to\nplease any taste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Srirupa Dasgupta, owner of\nLancaster-based vegetarian Upohar restaurant, said that she has seen the\nupswing in vegan demand as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s the fashion\nbut more people are doing vegan food. It\u2019s what people want,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upohar had their food\ntruck at the event, serving up warm plates of their exotic and hearty global\ncuisine. Nepali, Puerto Rican, Iraqi, and African fare were on the menu. I\nsampled a Central African inspired plate with peanut stew, Nigerian rice and\nCongalese kale and needless to say, it was worthy of several fork scrapes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dasgupta noticed another\ntrend at her restaurant \u2013 guests finding her business because of phone apps.\nVegans, vegetarians, and the veg-curious are making their way to her door\nthanks to technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lancaster VegFest had more to offer\nthan tasty food, though. Two stages were going all day, giving festival goers a\nchance to listen to panels on vegan topics, watch a jackfruit cooking demo, or\nhear local bands. West End Yoga had a free class on the lawn. There was a tent\nwith sprinklers to run through and cool off. Vendors sold apparel, cruelty-free\nbath and beauty goods, health and wellness services, and others had information\non vegan living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And don\u2019t forget the critters! In\naddition to many canine guests, Ricky the pot belly pig was in attendance from\nthe Pig Placement Network. Ricky greeted guests, created tempera paintings, and\nwas a ready volunteer to show attendees how much personality a pig can truly\nhave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto Jonina Turzi, co-founder of Lancaster Farm Sanctuary, one part of what made Lancaster\nVegFest effective as a vegan advocacy effort was how it created animal\nsentience awareness subtly. With co-founder, Sarah Salluzzo, Turzi cares for\nrescued cows, hens, turkeys, goats, and sheep on their sanctuary farm in\nElizabethtown, PA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\nevent has that precious factor of it being a \u2018fun\u2019 day. The usual defense\nmechanisms are down, which can interfere sometimes when people are challenged\nto consider their part in an animal\u2019s suffering,\u201d said Turzi. \u201cThrough\ndiscussions on the panels, conversations among the attendees, and interactions\nat certain stands awareness is cultivated. For example, we stopped by the Art\nof Compassion Project tent and saw so much beautiful artwork that both captured\nthe reality of animal suffering and celebrated animal lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like all great events, Lancaster\nVegFest also had an after-party. New York-based vegan drag queen Honey LaBronx\nput on a show in a downtown Lancaster ballroom as a benefit for Lancaster Farm\nSanctuary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For residents, the celebration goes\non, too. This week is the first ever vegan restaurant week in Lancaster.\nOrganized by Anna DeCosmo, who also operates the area\u2019s franchise of Vegan\nDrinks, LVRW features eight locally owned eateries who are putting out vegan\nmenus through June 9th<\/sup> and donating a portion of sales, also to\nLancaster Farm Sanctuary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival\u2019s iconic wooden \u201cvegan\u201d\nart piece was created over the past two months by Amber St. Clare Grebinger and\nTom Tagerli of East Petersburg, PA. It was part of a vision to set Lancaster\nVegFest apart, to make it memorable. It was a special moment during the event\nfor Grebinger when she saw Ricky the pig pose with her art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to\njust sit on the sidelines when I went vegan, I wanted to make an impact. We all\nknew (the art) would be something, but holy sh*t, there was not a single time\nthat I walked past that somebody wasn’t taking a picture!\u201d said Grebinger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the day, guests and passers-by\nposed with it, showcasing the installation in thousands of social media posts\nalong with the usual VegFest-esque message-tees and vegan eats. The posts and\nphotos will continue to echo the vegan message, the Kokuses hope, long after\nthe festival has been packed up and everyone has gone home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grebinger and Tagerli\u2019s \u201cvegan\u201d art now lives at Lancaster Farm Sanctuary with Turzi, Salluzzo, and their animal companions. As visitors roll up to the farm for volunteer hours or just to meet furry or feathered friends like Benji the goat or Sweet Eddie the hen, they are reminded once more of the Lancaster VegFest and its message of compassion, health, community, and justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Links:
\nLancaster VegFest<\/a>
\nUpohar Restaurant<\/a>
\nWest End Yoga<\/a>
\nPig Placement Network<\/a>
\nLancaster Farm Sanctuary<\/a>
\nLancaster Vegan Restaurant Week<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rissa Miller, Senior Editor, Vegetarian Journal Imagine the word vegan\u2026 Picture each letter over four feet tall and three feet wide, made of repurposed wooden planks \u2013 wide enough to stand or sit on if you can climb that high (not that you should ever climb on artwork, by the way). Now imagine that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13674,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13672\/revisions\/13674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}