Our Summer Soirée: A Benefit for Twin Cities Veg Fest is happening in just three weeks on Wednesday, July 27 from 7 to 10pm at Reverie Cafe + Bar. I would love to see you there. Reserve your tickets today!
This party promises lots that you’ll enjoy:
- Great food and drink from Reverie, everyone’s new favorite very vegan-friendly cafe and bar
- An opportunity to hang out with the compassionate community
- Performances by a few of our local talents, including the irrepressible Mistress Ginger
- The launch of our exciting new fundraising campaign for Twin Cities Veg Fest
Tickets are on sale now! A $25 ticket gets you into the swanky event and includes food, glorious vegan food. A $75 VIP ticket includes food, a complimentary drink, and a special glittery cookie basket personally made for you by Mistress Ginger and hand delivered to you at the party.
What are you waiting for? Get your tickets today and make this Summer Soirée the highlight of your summertime excursions. You’ll be supporting Twin Cities Veg Fest, which is expanding to be a two-day festival this year (October 29 and 30). Let’s make it awesome!
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
If you know me, you know how much I love to bike. That’s why I’m really excited to tell you about a special event coming up at the end of July that offers a vegan oatmeal breakfast followed by an easy morning bike ride. Since we’ll have bike enthusiasts from Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition there to offer pointers, this event is perfect for people who are new to biking. It’s Saturday, July 30. Save the date!
Also, we have a number of other events coming up for the month of July. I hope to see you at one or more of these fun opportunities to spend time with our compassionate community.
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
Pride week is here, and Compassionate Action for Animals gets to be a part of the festivities, doing pay-per-view outreach at the festival in Loring Park this weekend. We’ll be paying people a dollar to watch a five-minute abridged version of What Cody Saw.
When CAA has a presence at these kinds of events, I can’t help but think about the connections among different social justice movements, whether it be animal advocacy or LGBTQIA rights. I realize how we are all striving to make the world a better place for everyone.
It’s been more than a week since the Orlando tragedy. At the same time, billions of animals around the globe are suffering on factory farms. In a world where such atrocities can take place, it’s important to remember our capacity for compassion and how each of us can make a difference in our everyday lives.
Thank you for the kind choices you make and for caring about the lives of all beings. And Happy Pride!
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
Tomatoes. Mulberries. Swimming in Lake Nokomis.
But also the myriad summer concerts and festivals where we can do outreach, connect with our community, advocate for animals, and share that much needed message of compassion for all life.
A couple of these events include leafleting at Rock the Garden on Saturday and then, the following weekend, doing pay-per-view at the Twin Cities Pride Festival. Please join us as a volunteer at either of these outreach activities or stop by our table at Pride to say hello.
And if you’re looking for a fun way to celebrate the season, don’t forget about our June Potluck: Vegan Summer Solstice Celebration coming up on Monday the 20th from 6:30 to 8:30pm at the CAA Community Space. We’ll have a picnic on the lawn adjacent to the building. Please bring a vegan dish to share and join in the summery fun!
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
Compassionate Action for Animals is getting around this summer, and we’re super excited about it.
I’ll be heading to the East Coast next week for Taking Action for Animals in Washington, D.C., and then later in July a number of our other staff and volunteers will be heading to the West Coast for the Animal Rights National Conference. Both of these animal advocacy conferences are fantastic opportunities to work with national partners and to learn from what they’re doing for the movement.
Then, later this summer, I’ll be at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in New York serving as a camp counselor for the Youth Empowered Action Camp, a camp designed for teens who want to learn how to help animals. I hope to return with new skills for how to do training and empowerment for our own volunteers.
Each of us from CAA who will be attending these events is on our own individual journeys with animal advocacy, and so each of us will surely get something uniquely inspiring out of these experiences. I think it’s safe to say that all of us look forward to representing CAA and the Twin Cities in the best way we can and to being inspired by how other communities across the nation are making a difference. We’ll return with the intention to enrich our own community with all we’ve learned and to continue growing our impact right here in our own backyard.
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
Summer is nearly here, and we’ve got lots of fun activities coming up.
Our monthly potlucks and dine outs are perfect opportunities to get to know others in our animal-friendly community, and our pay-per-view outreach event at the Twin Cities Pride Festival is an excellent way to reach lots of people with a message of compassion for animals.
Check out the details below and then sign up to be a part of one or more of these fun and inspiring summer events!
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
I’m happy to share that Compassionate Action for Animals has started a new annual program that recognizes outstanding vegan-friendly businesses in the Twin Cities. Every year at this time, we can look forward to the Twin Cities Veggie Awards as a way to celebrate how our compassionate community is thriving.
The options for locally produced vegan products is plentiful, so it was extra challenging for our panel to narrow the list down to the five most outstanding, but here they are:
Winners of the 2016 Twin Cities Veggie Awards
Check out the announcement about the awards on our website. It features a list of all the finalists, including every all-vegan business in the Twin Cities (that we know of) as well as a curated list of the eleven top vegan-friendly businesses. Please use your consumer dollars to support these businesses that are helping us move toward a kinder world.
Of course, this is just a partial list of what the Twin Cities has to offer for compassionate living. Please refer to vegguide.org and happycow.net for a more complete listing of vegan options in the Twin Cities and beyond.
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
Guess what! The most recent issue of VegNews Magazine features my recommendations how to communicate effectively. I’m honored to be a part of this national resource for the veg community, and I appreciate how the magazine is shining a light on how to be more compassionate, not only through what we choose to eat but also through how we talk with one another.
My contribution to the VegNews article was taken from my 10 Tips on How to Have a Productive Online Discussion, which was first featured on the CAA blog. We’re really thrilled to see our organization’s content getting out there and shared in a national publication.
The magazine also features an article about our local vegan butcher shop, The Herbivorous Butcher, so it’s clear that the Twin Cities veg scene is getting some serious exposure. We’re growing, thriving, and becoming a major voice for compassionate living. Thank you for being a part of our community and for being a part of this great success.
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
Big news! Twin Cities Veg Fest 2016 will take place on Saturday, October 29 and Sunday, October 30, from 11am to 4pm each day. Wow, two whole days to celebrate compassion! And surprise, surprise, we’ll be back at Coffman Memorial Union at the University of Minnesota.
As you may recall, we wanted to bring the festival to an outdoor location this year, and we had nearly signed a contract with Powderhorn Park to host it there. But then we got the news that the park has a construction project planned that would conflict with our proposed festival dates. As soon as we found out, we looked into reserving a different park, but by then they were all booked.
Since moving the festival to an outdoor location isn’t going to work for this year, we considered how Coffman Union could accommodate the continued growth of the festival. That’s when we decided to expand the festival to two days. We’re thinking that will help with the crowding issue, as the thousands of attendees will be spread out over the course of the entire weekend.
There are other advantages, too. Vendors and exhibitors can choose to come for one or both days, and we’ll be able to accommodate additional presenters and cooking demos. We look forward to this year’s festival being our biggest and best one yet.
We’ll be sure to update you with news about exhibitors, cooking demos, speakers, and more. In the meantime, check out (and share!) our new animated video about the festival. It’s very cute and reveals all the awesome stuff that Twin Cities Veg Fest has to offer.
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
May is already off to a booming start for our compassionate community. On Sunday, we were at the MayDay Festival in Powderhorn Park where we gave people a dollar to watch an eye-opening video about factory farming.
Pay-per-view outreach is a powerful experience for both volunteers and participants alike. People who watch the video are often visibly moved by what they see, and then we have the opportunity to talk with them about how they can change their diet to make a difference for the animals.
Outreach such as that is just one aspect of what we do at CAA. Here’s the spectrum of what we’ve got coming up this month:
For the animals,
Unny Nambudiripad
