Enjoy Delicious food, free music, powerful speakers and more this weekend at Twin Cities Veg Fest and Their Lives, Our Voices

Come to Twin Cities Veg Fest on Saturday, eat a Vegan Love Waffle, learn about farmed animals, and celebrate compassion with some of our best local musical acts!

Twin Cities Veg Fest is a fun event for people who are interested in reducing animal suffering, thinking about transitioning toward vegetarianism or veganism, or otherwise want to explore the impact of compassionate consumer choice.

Speakers include Mercy for Animals' Executive Director Nathan Runkle, and also Farm Sanctuary's Nick Cooney. New this year, Twin Cities Veg Fest will have live music, featuring local artists Sleepyhead, Alison Scott, Sean Anonymous and In Defence. Attendees will enjoy tons of free vegan food samples as well as delicious vegan cuisine offered by food vendors such as Kitty Corner Cafe (creators of the Vegan Love Waffle), Asase Yaa, Flamingo and Seward Cafe!

Twin Cities Veg Fest is for anyone and everyone – omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans alike! So please invite all your non-veg friends and family! This is a fun, friendly event where they can learn about the animal-friendly community in the Twin Cities. Join our event on Facebook so they see that you're going, and please invite them yourself. For your music-loving friends, we also have a Facebook event for the concert.

The festival will take place from 10am to 4pm at Coffman Memorial Union on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota. See our location page for more details. The nearest parking is the East River Road Garage behind Coffman Memorial Union.

Get Inspired at Their Lives, Our Voices

After Twin Cities Veg Fest leaves you feeling energized and wanting to do more to help farmed animals, please join us for Their Lives, Our Voices (TLOV) on on Sunday, October 27 from 9:45am to 5:20pm in the Science Teaching & Student Services Building on the University of Minnesota Minneapolis Campus.

Their Lives, Our Voices is a one day animal advocacy conference featuring empowering talks on animal advocacy strategy, skills, and philosophy. The event features Nathan Runkle of Mercy for Animals as our keynote speaker. We have a great set of speakers lined up for the rest of the day too. They will provide a full day of presentations and workshops that will help you become a better advocate for animals. A vegan lunch is provided.

Registration is $20, with a $10 registration level available for students and low income individuals. You can RSVP to the Facebook event, but note online registration is required.

TLOV is hosted by Compassionate Action for Animals.

Delicious food, great speakers, and fantastic music! What more could you want?

Twin Cities Veg Fest is for anyone and everyone – from omnivores to vegetarians and vegans! If you've ever thought about becoming vegetarian or are interested in reducing animal suffering, you'll love Twin Cities Veg Fest. Here are the details:

Date: Saturday, October 26, 2013
Time: 10 am to 4 pm
Location: Coffman Memorial Union, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, 300 Washington Ave Southeast, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Cost: Free!

Learn where your food comes from, how to be a healthy vegetarian or vegan, and why being compassionate benefits everyone. Plus you'll enjoy tons of free vegan food samples and delicious vegan cuisine. We also have a great lineup of speakers, and this year we've added a concert! Everyone who came to our 2012 festival had a great time, and this year will be even better.

If you're already vegetarian or vegan, please invite your non-veg friends and family. This is a fun, friendly event where they can learn about the animal-friendly community in the Twin Cities. Join our event on Facebook so they see that you're going, and please invite them yourself. For your music-loving friends, we also have a Facebook event for the concert.

The 2013 Their Lives, Our Voices animal advocacy conference features a great collection of speakers. Find out what they’re talking about here!

Their Lives, Our Voices is back! The renowned animal advocacy conference is being rebooted for 2013. This year’s event will feature presentations from 11 leading animal advocates covering a broad range of topics. The day begins with a keynote from Nathan Runkle of Mercy for Animals, “Building a Kind Future: How You Can Make a World of Difference for Animals”. Thanks to Nathan’s leadership and the groundbreaking undercover work done by Mercy for Animals, millions of consumers have seen firsthand the plight of animals in factory farms. Following Nathan’s keynote, speakers will be divided into two tracks.

At 11:00, Minnesota Voters for Animal Protection founder and president Christine Coughlin will share her expertise in leading effective political and lobbying campaigns. Jessica Tritsch of the Sierra Club will discuss developing effective volunteer leadership teams, including recruiting volunteers, establishing roles and goals, and maintaining ongoing engagement.

At 1:00, University of Wisconsin-River Falls professor Greta Gaard will present on the intersection of animal welfare, feminism, and human rights. Nick Cooney, founder of The Human League and Compassionate Communities Manager for Farm Sanctuary and author of the excellent Change of Heart, will review the latest research in psychology and communication studies to help identify the most effective ways to inspire behavioral change.

At 2:00, CAA co-founder and Executive Director Unny Nambudiripad will provide a how-to on planning engaging and effective events. Suzy Sorensen, owner of Move2Veg Nutrition Counseling, will highlight up-to-date, science-based nutritional information that every activist needs to know to speak convincingly on plant-based and vegan diets.

At 3:00, Michelle Rosier of the Sierra Club will provide insight on leading effective grassroots campaigns, including setting goals, determining targets, identifying key stakeholders, and assessing results. CAA co-founder and Board Member Dave Rolsky will discuss CAA’s strategy and vision in the pursuit of animal liberation.

The final speakers of the day will be Bridges of Respect Program Coordinator Shannon Kimball and St. Catherine University professor Jeff Johnson. Shannon will highlight the effectiveness of humane education and outreach to schools. Jeff will examine alternative messaging strategies used when discussing animal welfare.

Whether you’re a seasoned vet or just finding your footing as an animal advocate, you can be sure there’s plenty to learn at this year’s TLOV. Why wait? Register today! Be sure to check us out on Facebook and invite your friends! And all volunteers get free admission to the conference. Take a look at the website to see if any available positions work for you.

Can you help make the Twin Cities Veg Fest a success? We need help at the festival and before and after as well. Thanks!

Compassionate Action for Animals is hosting the second annual Twin Cities Veg Fest on October 26, 2013. We need your help to make it a success. It will be a lot of fun, you'll get to meet other volunteers, and you'll be an integral part of this huge festival!

Here are the available positions:

• U-Haul Loading (the evening before the festival)
• Set-up
• Speaker Monitor
• Maintenance
• CAA Table
• Veg Fest Table
• Paid Per View Table
• Food Giveaway Table
• Greeters
• Floater
• Tech Support
• Concert Helpers
• Kids Area Helpers
• Clean-up
• Evening Transport

See more details at the Twin Cities Veg Fest website, and let us know what you're interested in helping with by emailing [email protected]. Feel free to volunteer all day, if you're available. We'll provide fellowship and an amazing, fun-filled veggie experience! Hope to see you there!

Their Lives, Our Voices gathers activists from around the country for an inclusive, high-quality, hands-on conference focused on empowering advocates in their efforts to help farmed animals.

Please register today! This event is accessible to all animal advocates, showcasing diverse topics and perspectives within our movement. Networking and attendee participation are vital to TLOV's success, so please come and help make our fourth TLOV conference an exceptional event.

This year's TLOV will be a one day event on Sunday, October 27 from 9:45am to 5:20pm in the Science Teaching & Student Services Building on the University of Minnesota Minneapolis Campus.

The event features Nathan Runkle of Mercy for Animals as our keynote speaker. We have a great set of speakers lined up for the rest of the day too. They will provide a full day of presentations and workshops that will help you become a better advocate for animals.

Registration is $20, with a $10 registration level available for students and low income individuals. You can register online right now. All paid attendees will receive a vegan lunch as part of their registration fee.

Of course, you'll also want to come a day before to visit the Twin Cities Veg Fest on Saturday, October 26.

TLOV is hosted by Compassionate Action for Animals.

Want an easy way to help animals, while sharing good food and reaching new audiences? Help us distribute posters and flyers to get the word out about the second ever Twin Cities Veg Fest!

The October 26 Twin Cities Veg Fest is rapidly approaching, and we need your help to distribute posters and flyers around the community and at the University of Minnesota campus. We are postering/flyering during the following dates and times:

• On-campus: Thursday, October 3, from 4:00 to 8:00 pm
• Off-campus: Wednesday, October 9, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm
• Off-campus: Sunday, October 13, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm
• On-campus: Wednesday, October 16, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm

We especially could use your help for the off-campus postering sessions on October 9 and 13!

For the off-campus dates we will meet at the CAA Community Office, and for the on-campus dates we will meet in the central area on the 2nd floor of the U of M's Coffman Memorial Union.

We'll be serving food at each of these events, so RSVP to [email protected] so we know how much to provide! We will distribute posters/flyers on each date for about 3 hours, then reconvene to eat.

If you can't attend any of these sessions but want to put up posters on your own schedule, email [email protected] and we'll make arrangements to get you some posters!

After last year's festival we got a lot of positive feedback. We were told that we should "have one ever year". Ok, done. One person said that it was "very informative and educational". Great, that's our goal!

But of course, the love wasn't universal. For example, one person wanted "speakers geared towards more experienced vegans/vegetarians". But here's what we wish someone had told us: "I'm already vegan and I came to this event but I didn't learn anything new."

If you're vegan, that's great! Thank you for making compassionate choices. You've already done a great deal to help reduce the number of animals suffering needlessly in factory farms. But when we consider who the festival is for, we have to ask ourselves how we can reduce that suffering even more.

So who is the Twin Cities Veg Fest for? It's for people who are still eating animal products, of course. If we want to make a further change beyond our own diet, we need to reach out to people who are in the best position to help animals, the people still eating them. The goal of the Twin Cities Veg Fest is to showcase the thriving, warm, fun community of people who care about animals in the region. We also want to provide powerful information on the realities of factory farming and how each individual can help animals simply by moving towards a vegan diet. That is the thinking that drives every decision we make about the festival. We want to make this an event for everyone, but especially for people who aren't yet vegan.

If you're reading this, it's likely that you already know a lot of the information we'll present at the festival. The speakers' presentations may seem too basic, the products we present may not be new to you. But for people who are new to these issues, these presentations and products could be just the thing that convinces them to make a change in their lives.

While many vegetarians and vegans heard about the festival from us last year, many of the people who still eat animals heard about this event from a vegetarian or vegan friend. It's people just like you who made the festival a success last year. If you can come to the event this year with three of your non-veg friends, think of the impact that could have!

While the festival is targeted at the veg-curious, we also have an event for those who are already convinced. This year we're bringing back our Their Lives, Our Voices animal advocacy conference. This conference will take place on Sunday, October 27, the day after the festival. The conference will feature two tracks of great speakers including nationally recognized leaders in the animal advocacy movement, including Nathan Runkle from Mercy for Animals and Nick Cooney from Farm Sanctuary. We also have a great lineup of locals including speakers from Compassionate Action for Animals, Minnesota Voters for Animal Protection, and experienced organizers from the Sierra Club. If you want to take the next step to help animals, this conference will empower you with the skills and motivation you need to take your advocacy to the next level. Registration is just $20, so please buy your ticket today.

On Thursday, September 19 we had Rachel Shippee, a special guest from Vegan Outreach, come leaflet on the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities campus. Our volunteers handed out 701 leaflets and Rachel distributed about 2000! Leafleting is a great way to help animals. As you can see, in just a short amount of time thousands of "Compassionate Choices" leaflets were distributed to open-mined college students. Despite the rainy weather, the day was a success!

Do you want to help leaflet at future events? Please email Grace to sign up!