CAA Executive Director Unny Nambudiripad tells the story of his friendship with Kenny Feldman. We're hosting the Twin Cities Veg Fest concert in Kenny's memory.

I'm pleased to have worked with Carole and Stan Feldman to present the Twin Cities Veg Fest concert in memory of Kenny Feldman. Kenny was a close friend of mine and was instrumental in my being where I am today. We lost him to suicide 14 years ago.

I met Kenny as soon as I started college. Kenny was an avid reader, intensely curious, a lover of music, and was an irreverent skeptic. Knowing him became an opportunity for me to learn and grow.

During our second year of college, we were living together and he started volunteering with the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG), an environmental and social justice organization. He spoke enthusiastically about what they were doing and the people he met. I decided I would get involved, too, and followed his lead – to my first MPIRG meeting. I got involved, and by the fall I started to see that organizing for social change was meaningful for me. Through MPIRG, I met an animal activist and became involved in animal advocacy. A year later, I co-founded Compassionate Action for Animals.

Kenny's life was difficult. He suffered from depression much of his life and took his life in 1999. I'm grateful I was able to know him and that I was influenced by him. Shortly before he passed away, I told him how much he meant to me and how I appreciated the key role he played in getting me on the path I am on.

I hope this concert is a fitting tribute to his life. He was a lover of animals. He was close to his companions and was a vegetarian. Kenny loved music. He listened to an expansive variety of genres.

I loved the way that Kenny danced. He was always listening to music and going to concerts, but he rarely danced. He was shy about it; he didn't think he danced well. He suffered from muscular dystrophy, which made his movements unique – and better. He was wild and he was original, and this made him a beautiful and inspiring dancer. And it was these same qualities that led him to be a voice for those less fortunate.

I've stayed in touch with his parents, and with their support we're doing the concert in Kenny's memory. They want to keep his memory alive, and to remember him for the things he loved – animals and music. Kenny's family misses him every day and is honored to support CAA, an organization that so closely aligns with his deeply held value of compassion.

If you, or a loved one, are struggling with depression, please go to the Suicide Awareness Voices of Education (SAVE) website for more information on how you can help or get help.

At the Animal Rights 2013 conference last weekend, Compassionate Action for Animals co-founder and Executive Director was awarded the Henry Spira Grassroots Animal Activist Award.

Unny Nambudiripad has been involved in animal protection since 1997. In 1998, at age 21, he co-founded Compassionate Action for Animals, a Minnesota-based farmed animal advocacy organization. He currently serves as CAA's Executive Director. Here are a few of the Unny and CAA's accomplishments:

• Unny and CAA have organized potlucks, food giveaways, dine-outs, and the 2012 Twin Cities Veg Fest. The 2012 Twin Cities Veg Fest was attended by more than 1,200 people and featured national speakers and exhibitors from leading vegan food producers.
• From 2008 through 2010, Compassionate Action for Animals organized the national Their Lives, Our Voices conference, a three-day conference with speakers such as Nathan Runkle of Mercy for Animals, Gene Baur of Farm Sanctuary, and Carol Adams. In October, CAA will organize the second Twin Cities Veg Fest, which will be followed by a one day Their Lives, Our Voices conference.
• CAA has handed out more than 190,000 Vegan Outreach leaflets at colleges, concerts, and events.
• Compassionate Action for Animals has organized Veg Week for the last ten years. During Veg Week, several hundred people pledge to be vegetarian or vegan. CAA provides pledgers with a care pack and organizes a week-long series of events including a tour of a chicken sanctuary, a prominent national speaker, a concert, a film screening, and a potluck. CAA works with local veg-friendly restaurants and provides a discount card to pledgers.
• CAA is the creator and operator of VegGuide.org, a worldwide guide to veg-friendly restaurants and businesses with more than 16,000 entries.
• Unny has conducted investigations on factory farms, exposing cruelty to chickens raised for laying eggs.

Unny has trained and supervised hundreds of volunteers, raised funds, and has overseen every aspect of growing Compassionate Action for Animals into a powerful animal advocacy organization. He is most proud of keeping the organization focused on conducting its work with humility and respect, for being a persistent voice for animals, and empowering a new generation of effective animal advocates.

Shannon Kimball, an educator with Bridges of Respect, has been offering humane education to classrooms across Minnesota for ages 6 and up. Bridges of Respect, a CAA project, has been teaching students about compassion, justice, and kindness since 1999.

In a recent article on the Examiner, Minnesota animal advocate Lisle Soukup profiled Compassionate Action for Animals' Bridges of Respect program. The profile focuses on Bridges humane educator Shannon Kimball.

Bridges of Respect has been offering humane education to classrooms across the state since 1999, teaching compassion, kindness, and justice to students 6th grade and up. This program uses a curriculum modeled after that of the International Institute for Humane Education, focusing on education as a set of tools and strategies to teach about human rights, animal protection, environmental stewardship, and culture issues.

Bridges of Respect offers topics that are a great fit for any class and they tailor each lesson to the specific age group they are teaching. Shannon Kimball states that their goal is to "offer character training and real lasting social change."

To learn more about Bridges of Respect, visit the program's website.

Did you miss out on any of AmyLeo’s amazing vegan cooking classes? No worries – we’ve got all of her delectable recipes here for you to try out at home!

Amazing vegan chef and caterer AmyLeo Barankovich has been at it again! She’s whipping up delicious vegan recipes and sharing her knowledge of vegan cooking with vegan and veg-curious people across the Twin Cities and now we’ve got some of her stellar recipes to share with you all here!

Whether you want something to satisfy your sweet tooth or you want to impress your dinner guests, these recipes will get your vegan cooking endeavors started on the right foot!

Here are the recipes:

• Lightly Curried Kielbasa and New Potatoes
• Watercress and Fennel Salad
• Smokey Black Peppered Seared Green Beans
• Vanilla Pudding Parfait

AmyLeo is a passionate vegan chef. She began cooking for a family of ten at the age of 13 and has since been delighting family, friends, and colleagues with creative, delicious, beautiful, wholesome food since. She recently founded Vegan Affairs: A Place for Taste and Grace, offering private and public vegan cooking classes, personal chef services, vegan coaching, and restaurant consulting. Currently she is offering classes at Kitchen Window, The Wedge, Seward Co-op, Whole Foods, Linden Hills Co-op, Eastside Co-op and Mississippi Market.

If you are interested in more vegan cooking classes or are interested in any of AmyLeo’s other services, send her an email!

Our second annual Vegan Pancake Brunch Feed-In took place at Van Cleve Park on Saturday, April 27, 2013.

The warm weather allowed guests to bask in sunlight at Van Cleve’s outdoor pavilion while they enjoyed a delicious brunch of vegan pancakes and vegan sausage. This year we provided an additional gluten-free pancake option. Reports on both recipes were overwhelmingly positive.

Our pancake recipe, courtesy of Adam Marquardt (our resident pancake chef at the event) is below:

Vegan Pancakes

Dry ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose flour (for gluten-free version, substitute with brown rice flour)
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoon sugar
• dash of cinnamon

Wet ingredients

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Ener-G egg replacer (equivalent to 1 egg)
• 1 cup nondairy milk (unsweetened almond)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Mix the wet together in small mixing bowl. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry and stir just until smooth (mixing as little as possible). The mixture should be just thin enough to pour easily. If it’s not, add a little more nondairy milk.

Heat a griddle to medium hot or heat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Pour 1/4 cup of batter onto the pan. Flip the pancake after most of the bubbles it forms have popped and the edges are starting to dry (1-2 minutes). Cook for another 1-2 minutes until golden brown.

Serve with vegan buttery spread and pure maple syrup.

We handed out 5,962 leaflets at seven colleges last week.

Last week's blizzard did not stop 25 volunteers from educating college students about the cruel realities of modern animal farms. We passed out Vegan Outreach's Compassionate Choices and Even If You Like Meat brochures, empowering students to consider how their food choices impact animals.

We handed out many leaflets earlier this year, so this gave us the opportunity to ask students if they have already received a leaflet. Many students had, and reported that they were moved by what they read. We followed up and gave them a Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating, empowering them with nutrition information, recipes, and helpful tips to move towards a vegan diet. One student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, exclaimed "I totally agree!" when asked what he thought about the leaflet. Another said, "I don't know where I stand on this issue. But thank you for giving out this information and opening my eyes."Based on comments like this and other feedback we receive, we are confident that our efforts to educate the public about the cruelties of animal agriculture and the vegetarian alternative is making a big impact!

Thanks to all the volunteers that helped out! If you didn't get a chance to leaflet, please sign up with us and help grow the movement against animal cruelty.

The 13th Annual North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies will be held at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College from June 20-22. The conference merges academic and activist insight with presentations from scholar-activists and grassroots organizers alike.

If you are in the Twin Cities area this summer then be sure to check out the Conference for Critical Animal Studies at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. The conference is a three-day event that will run June 20-22.

The conference will be packed with speakers, insight from leading animal activists, and presentations from scholars. The theme for this year's conference is Breaking the Silence on Global and Local Intersections of Ethnicity, Spirituality, and Nonhuman Animals, and promises to spur great conversation and insight.

If you are interested in attending you can register here by June 1st for a cost of $40. An updated schedule will be made available as the conference dates get closer, so be sure to check back often or check them out on Facebook.