World Go Vegan Week a Success!

World Go Vegan Week, October 25 – 31 2009

World Go Vegan Week for 2009 was an incredible success. We had 42 events in 10 different counties. Grassroots

Ottawa WGVW Bowling Party

volunteer activist organized events to celebrate World Go Vegan Week with activities like tabling, leafleting, film screenings, vegan food samplings, vegan potlucks, Halloween parties and more!

Countries holding events outside the U.S. include Australia, Ireland, Vienna, Netherland, South Africa, Bolivia, Congo, India, and 6 events in Canada.

We sent activist a packet of materials, flyers, and posters as well as coupons for popular vegan products and stickers. In total, for World Go Vegan Week we sent out:

The Reason for Vegan – 8,500
Global Warming Flyer- 9,000
Vegan Starter Kit- 500

Another form of outreach during World Go Vegan Week was our Food Editor’s Pack. We created a letter specifically for food editors and compiled vegan recipes in PDF form with beautiful images of food. We sent the pack from IDA to 45 major papers across the U.S., and then offered the pack for individual members to send to their local papers. We got lots requests for the editor’s pack and dozens of individuals sent out the pack to over 50 more papers in the U.S.

We teamed up with Mercy for Animals to help them distribute their new documentary called Fowl Play exposing the horrors in the egg industry. We have given away numerous copies of the DVD to grassroots activist for film screenings in their area.

World Go Vegan Week Halloween Costume Party

Our World Go Vegan Week Halloween Costume Party in San Francisco rocked! We had 100 people in attendance and everybody LOVED it. Some really creative vegan and animal related costumes. The food was great, lots of sweet treats and the costume contest was great fun. The fog machine and flashing “disco” lights really added to the atmosphere. The speakers, Kenneth Williams, World Champion Vegan Bodybuilder and Lauren Ornelas, Founder of the Food Empowerment Project, were engaging and informative. There were some really nice items in the Silent Auction and Raffle that brought in some funds for IDA.

From other World Go Vegan Week Participants:

Ottawa Activists Bowling Party

Local Ottawa activist spent the week handing out leaflets on many street corners  encouraging them to look at the option of going Vegan. We all had  tremendous responses from the public. We handed out over a thousand leaflets. Spoke with vegetarians and asked them to consider going Vegan, We also held a Bowling fundraiser for Canada’s largest Bonnie refuges who will be looped together under the new name of CANADIAN HEART in the near future. They are now looking for a large piece of land in which they can expand their refuge to include over 800 animals.  Our very first bowling fundraiser was indeed a success. With over 43 compassionate , enthusiastic people bowling, biding and playing 50/50.
We raised  almost $1,700.00 at our very first event.. Famous George Laraque Montreal Canadian Hockey Player who recently turned Vegan after watching the movie Earthlings donated a signed Jersey which helped tremendously for our auction.

I speak for Teja’s Animal Refuge and Refuge RR for horses in thanking IDA for  doing what you do for animals all over the world and by founding WORLD GO VEGAN WEEK.

From San Diego:

We had a great event, talked to several people who are already vegetarian, hopefully gave them enough reason to be vegan…had a lot of different conversations, all positive…talked to two men, an Egyptian and a Pakistani, who already knew about the lab meat from cells..”shmeet”…they voiced concerned about animals and said they could lessen consumption but not stop eating it completely…but would eat shmeat instead if available…so many people were receptive, listened, read literature..

we’re going to regularly go out a couple of hours a week.. possibly starting tomorrow night…Robyn