Best Wishes for 2010

From Vision Voice Veg*n'z for the Brazos Valley, we wish everyone a Happy Holiday & a Happy, Healthy New Year. May 2010 be the start of a very special year for us all.

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

Results of Bless the Beasts and the Children

Saturday the 12th of December the Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley hosted the 1st annual Bless the Beasts and the Children holiday donation drive thru. The event was held in the parking lot of VILLAGE FOODS. JIM LEWIS, owner, so graciously allowed us to utilize a perfect spot for this drive thru endeavor.

The spot may have been perfect, but that is not the word to describe the horrible, rainy, misty, foggy, windy, cloudy, cold day. When I awoke at 4am that Saturday morning and heard the rain.... I knew it was going to be a very tough day. Hubby Bear and I arrived around 6:30am to start setting up. We had 3 tents donated for use and I cannot tell you how very, very grateful I was for those tents. They sheltered the dedicated volunteers from the weather and kept the donated goods dry while waiting to load into the trucks.

Mary Landreth from Brazos Feral Cat Allies and Della Carroll from God’s Little Creatures brought the tents.

The 5 Organizations that benefited from this event:

BRAZOS FERAL CAT ALLIES
GOD’S LITTLE CREATURES
GREAT PYRENEES RESCUE SOCIETY
IMPACT ANIMAL FOUNDATION
SCOTTY’S HOUSE

I must give our volunteers a GREAT BIG HUGE THANK YOU for showing up! Including our 4-legged ones! I am so proud of each one of them and just so impressed. On a day that would have been so much easier to just stay at home.. in bed... with hot tea and a book.... these terrific folks braved the really crummy weather in behalf of the 5 wonderful organizations and made this event a HUGE success:

ADITYA SHRIVASTAVA Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley
CHERYL ANNE CHANDLER Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley
FRANCES DE GELIA Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley
FRANCHESCA GARZA Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley
GAIL OSTENSEN Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley
IRENE ERION Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley
KELIN WARD Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley
KRISTEN WILLIAMS Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley
LAURA THOMAS Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley
TUXEDO MASK Vision Voice Veg*n’z for the Brazos Valley

JOHN BORDEN Community Fresh Aggieland

VICKI HOLLOWAY KAMU TV/FM

DYLAN HOLLOWAY

HUBBY BEAR PECENA
LOU WEST
RICK MANLEY
SEAN LEGG
TAM JACKSON

BECKY ALMANY Brazos Feral Cat Allies
MARSHA MATCEK Brazos Feral Cat Allies
MARY LANDRETH Brazos Feral Cat Allies

CASSIE God’s Little Creatures
DELLA CARROLL God’s Little Creatures
KELLY God’s Little Creatures

FRANCES DE GELIA Great Pyrenees Rescue Society

ERIC REYES Impact Animal Foundation
JENNIFER TAYLOR Impact Animal Foundation
LORI NOVOSAD Impact Animal Foundation
MICHELLE MARSH Impact Animal Foundation
SHARON OTHOLT Impact Animal Foundation

LINDA PATTON Scotty’s House
MELANIE SCARPACE Scotty’s House

DUSTIN JOHNSON Scotty's House

The following are the awesome sponsors that helped get this show on the road!

BIG...BIG THANKS TO THESE FINE FOLKS!

VILLAGE FOODS, Jim Lewis (parking lot, coupons & distributed over 2000 flyers at his store)
COPY STOP PRINT & POSTAL, Jeff Plotts and Ralph Nieto (donated 750 flyers & coupons)
LITTLE CAESAR’S PIZZA, Phil Trampini (donated all the pizza for the gang & coupons)

VILLAGE CAFE (Kellie Moore's delicious pies)
GOBBLE GREEN, Jennifer and Kevin (tortilla soup and coupons)
BRAZOS NATURAL FOODS, Janice Atkins (a case of water)

Community Partners that got the word out:
KAMU TV
KAMU FM
KEOS FM

THE EAGLE

And we can't forget the awesome photographers for the event and all the great pics they took!!! BIG THANKS to Franchesca Garza and Hubby Bear Pecena!!!

We had a fun-filled day even in the cold, dreary weather. Yes, we were all shivering... but heck, after a couple of hours ..... the body gets numb.. know what I mean? So...no big deal... ya get used to it! People started showing up around 10am and continued pretty much non-stop till 3pm. We had volunteers out at each entrance holding the cutest signs designed and made by Cheryl Anne Chandler and donated by her mom, Tonya Chandler.

People drove up with their cars and SUV’s and vans full of stuff for everyone. We had a lot of folks donate money. And several came by because they had been shopping at Village Foods and was given one of our flyers! We gave out a package of coupons from our sponsors to each person that donated just to say thank you for your kind gifts.

BIG THANKS to Franchesca Garza for providing the orange traffic cones that helped keep things tidy and orderly!!

I kept the troops fed with breakfast tacos from Village Foods. For lunch, Little Caesar’s Pizza on Booneville Road across from Bryan Krogers, fed everyone pizza.. including vegetarian and vegan pizzas! Kellie Wilcox Moore made Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter pies.. and they were to die for!! And then, mid afternoon, Jennifer and Kevin from Gobble Green, located in Austin, came over and brought us HOT n spicy Vegan tortilla soup! WOW!! That soup was awesome! We cameras on site, but did not get any pictures of the food! We all ate well while working hard unloading donations and loading them into the designated trucks

We heard all positive comments... like “so glad you are doing something like this.” “Hope you will do this again next year.” “I think it is wonderful that you chose the rescue societies as well as Scotty’s House.”

Over $2000.00 in cash was donated and thousands of dollars worth of goods and items were loaded up in the trucks over the 8 hours! Considering the weather, we rocked the day! Check out more pictures below of the event.

I am very proud of our new Vegan and Vegetarian (Veg*n) group. It was born only this past September and we were able and willing to put this event together in only 2 months. What a great group of members we have and what an amazing giving community BCS is to come out in miserable weather and donate to 5 worthy and deserving organizations!

If you are Vegan or Vegetarian ... or thinking about making the transition to one or the other.... and would like to be a part of this dynamic and dedicated group of great folks... just contact me! Our next meetup is January the 12th, 6:30pm Village Cafe.

Thank you everyone!!!

God Bless you all!

Slyck Pecena
Founder & Leader of VISION VOICE VEG*N’z for the Brazos Valley

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children, and Bless this Earth

Rekindle That Inner Light and Let It Shine Brightly!

On this first day of winter and the winter solstice..... a very dear friend of mine... one that I keep close to my heart and think of often... one that I lost touch with for many years and one that just took the time to find me.....wrote this inspiring read on how to let the light shine in your life. How this light, that we generate from within, can inspire others to shine as well.....

As the end of December is upon us, the religious holidays of Christmas and Hanukkah arrive along with the winter solstice that occurs on December 21. With these, and many other celebrations taking place around the world at this time, the reason is light. Ancient people celebrated light at this time of year by making roaring bonfires and bringing greenery inside the home, all meant to bring life and light to a darkened landscape. These rituals represented hope for the coming of spring.

I invite you to read Susan Cadley's blog on "Kindle Your Light." I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Slyck Pecena

Founder & Leader of Vision Voice Veg*n'z for the Brazos Valley

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

Time Magazine's Scathing Indictment of Factory Farming

August 20, 2009
Time Magazine's Scathing Indictment of Factory Farming
By Nathan Runkle

Today's issue of Time magazine carries a compelling article titled "America's Food Crisis and How to Fix It."The in-depth piece paints a sobering picture of the cruel, unhealthy, and unsustainable practices used on factory farms nationwide. Here are some particularly powerful quotes from the feature:

"Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He's fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he'll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an American addiction to meat that has contributed to an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than two-thirds of the population. And when the rains come, the excess fertilizer that coaxed so much corn from the ground will be washed into the Mississippi River and down into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will help kill fish for miles and miles around. That's the state of your bacon -- circa 2009."

Readers also learn:
"In CAFOs, large numbers of animals -- 1,000 or more in the case of cattle and tens of thousands for chicken and pigs -- are kept in close, concentrated conditions and fattened up for slaughter as fast as possible, contributing to efficiencies of scale and thus lower prices. But animals aren't widgets with legs. They're living creatures, and there are consequences to packing them in prison-like conditions."It's encouraging to see mainstream media giving such pressing and important issues such coverage. Hopefully Time readers will reconsider their next burger or pork chop, and opt for the healthy, humane, and sustainable vegetarian option instead.

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

Bless the Beasts & the Children, Today the 12th of December 2009

VISION VOICE VEG*N’z for the Brazos Valley is hosting Bless the Beasts and the Children holiday donation drive thru in the parking lot of Village Foods, 1716 Briarcrest Drive in Bryan, around the corner from Bryan High School. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Today, the 12th of December. You can drop off donated items and people will be there to unload them.

Bless the Beasts and the Children benefits:

BRAZOS FERAL CAT ALLIES
GOD’S LITTLE CREATURES
GREAT PYRENEES RESCUE SOCIETY
IMPACT ANIMAL FOUNDATION
SCOTTY’S HOUSE

Here is a wish list for each wonderful organization:
* Brazos Feral Cat Allies -- Wet and dry cat food and kitten food, kitty litter and money for medical supplies and care for the foster and feral cats.

* God's Little Creatures -- Stainless steel feeding and water bowls, puppy feed pans, new or gently used blankets and towels, dog food and money for a new bath house.

* Great Pyrenees Rescue Society -- extra-large wire crates and dog beds; dog treats; adjustable collars and leashes; a portable, retractable tent; and money for vaccinations, spaying and neutering, medicine and surgeries for sick Pyrenees.

* Impact Animal Foundation -- New or used crates and kennels in good condition, cat and dog treats and toys, kitty litter, carpet cleaner, paper towels, cat "trees" and scratching posts, and leashes.

* Scotty's House -- individual juice drinks; snacks; coloring books; tempera and finger paints; bandages; alcohol swabs; basic office supplies such as folders, pens and pencils; socks and underwear for boys and girls; action figures; Play Station games; and money for medical supplies.

Our Awesome sponsors for this event:
VILLAGE FOODS
COPY STOP PRINT AND POSTAL
LITTLE CAESAR'S PIZZA
VILLAGE CAFE
GOBBLE GREEN
BRAZOS NATURAL FOODS

Thank you for helping children and animals in need.

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children, & Bless this Earth

Bless the Beasts and the Children update 12/10/09

HOWDY everyone!!!!

12/10/09 Phil Trampini, owner of BCS Little Caesars Pizza is feeding the volunteers!! They even have vegetarian and vegan pizzas!!! BIG.. HUGE THANKS!!!!!

12/5/09 We are looking awesome for the event. We have volunteers, plenty of trucks and now in need of great weather!! YAY!!!! BIG HUGE THANKS to all of you guys that stepped up and volunteered your time, effort and energy to this event in behalf of your group and these wonderful organizations!!

5 Local Organizations will benefit: *Brazos Feral Cat Allies *God’s Little Creatures *The Great Pyrenees *Impact Animal Foundation *Scotty’s House

The lists of donations are now posted on this blogsite. They are on the back of the flyers as well.

11/23/09 delivered 1000 more flyers to Village Foods for distribution

11/18/09 Village Foods gave out all 750 flyers!!! YAY!!! Time for more!!! YAY!

11/12/09 The great folks at Gobble Green out of Austin (a gourmet Vegan food delivery service) is going to bring over some samples of their foods and discount coupons to give away at our event! YAY!!!! Check out their website! BIG THANKS Jennifer and Kevin!!!

11/5/09 Cheryl Anne Chandler has volunteered to design and make up signage for the day of the event!!! WHOOP!!! Thanks kiddo!!!!

If you work for the school district or if you are a Vet or work in a vet clinic, start a contest and give away prizes to the school, the grade, the classroom that collects the most donations for this event.

Have a contest with the vet clinics in town.... give prizes for the mose donations collected for this great cause!

CSPD and BPD and CSFD and BFD's could hold contests and give prizes for the city that collects the most donations...

11/6/09 I visited with Jim Lewis over at Village Foods yesterday and he showed me the area that we can use for this event! It could not have been more perfect!!! Excellent access and location. We have all the area in front of the Galaria Office Building. It is set up like a circle drive thru... so PERFECT for what we want to do!!! YAY!!!!

AND Franchesca Garza, our newest member, can get traffic cones for us!!!! DOUBLE YAY!!!! Thanks so much, FRANCHESCA!!!

I gave Jim the flyers for his folks to start distributing to customers as they check out. Hopefully the distribution will begin today and continue thru the day of the event!!! WHOOP!!!

BIG THANKS JIM LEWIS for everything you are doing to help support this event!

I will send out an email to everyone regarding volunteer sign up and the shifts available as well as availability of pick up trucks... etc.... probably just before Thanksgiving.

In case you have not read the original blog about Bless the Beasts and the Children, go ahead and take a look. This will catch you up to what we are doing.

I encourage each one of you to print out the flyer that I emailed a couple of days ago and hand it out or email it. SPREAD THE WORD!!

EVENT SPONSORS

*VILLAGE FOODS

*COPY STOP PRINT & POSTAL

*BRAZOS NATURAL FOODS

*VILLAGE CAFE

*GOBBLE GREEN

*LITTLE CAESAR'S PIZZA

Community Partners:

*KAMU TV/FM

*KEOS FM

Here’s more scoop:

BLESS THE BEASTS AND THE CHILDREN

Saturday December the 12th (possible inclimate weather date the 19th of Dec)

8am to 5pm Parking lot of Village Foods. (they are our first sponsor!)

Not only are they allowing us to use part of their lot; but also, they will stuff flyers in people’s bags during November and up to the event!! We provide the flyers. WHOOP!!! BIG THANKS JIM LEWIS!!!

People donate items and/or money to these entities. People drive up and we unload the donations and people drive away. Items are loaded in pickups according to destination and then delivered that day. We will store items under tents while waiting on delivery. Everything will be delivered that day.

Volunteer schedule:

Four (3 ) hour shifts beginning at 6:30 or 7am to 6pm. This will include set up and tear down. Maybe 6 to 8 folks (MINIMUM) per shift at the site. We definitely can use as many folks as possible! Each organization needs to have someone at their end to accept and unload the donations as they are delivered.

MARY LANDRETH, with Brazos Feral Cat Allies, has offered up her tent to use!!!! YAY!! Thank you so much Mary!!

We now have 4 tents!!!

COPY STOP PRINT & POSTAL stepped up & donated services for 750 ds flyers!!!! WHOOP! BIG thanks to Jeff and Ralph over there!!!

FRANCES DE GELIA submitted the radio PSA's for the event! BIG THANKS FRANNIE D!!!

KELLIE WILCOX-MOORE owner of the VILLAGE CAFE has volunteered to feed the volunteers the day of the event!!! I know we can always make room for more folks to help Kellie! AND..she has volunteered a tent, too!!! THANK YOU KELLIE!!!!

BRAZOS NATURAL FOODS will donate drinking water for us the day of the event! WOO HOO BIG THANKS, JANICE ATKINS!!!

DELLA CARROLL, God's Little Creatures, is letting us use 2 tents..... THANK YOU, Della!..

BIG thanks to KAMU FM & KEOS FM for helping to promote this event!

NOVEMBER the 5th. I will speak to the Leadership Brazos Alumni Association about our group and the Bless the Beasts and Children event at the new Best Western Inn, Austin Colony area in Bryan from 11:30am to 1pm

DECEMBER the 10th, Thursday, Mary Jo Prince and I will be on Sharon Colson's show Brazos Valley Magazine on KAMU TV to promote the event. (tape the show on the 2nd of Dec)

Whew!!!! Ok, I really need you guys help for sure. You are all Vegans and Vegetarians.. You eat very healthy and have TONS of energy.... come on and put it to great use!!! YAY!!!

Please, let me know you are available to help and we can work together on this wonderful event that will benefit so many local organizations and give great publicity for a lot of local merchants!!!

Bless the Beasts, Bless the Children and Bless this Earth

KAMU TV Pledge Night with Us Vegans and Vegetarians

This past Wednesday night our group, VISION VOICE VEG*N'Z for the Brazos Valley, was invited to man the pledge bank phones for our local PBS affiliate, KAMU TV. Located in a small community..... around 200,000 when the Texas A&M is in session and less then 150,000 when students leave....KAMU TV has been on the air since 1970. Along with KAMU FM, KAMU TV is located on the Texas A&M University campus in the Joe Hiram Moore building.

Four times a year, the great folks at KAMU TV come into your home via television to ask for help by pledging your $upport so that they can continue to air great programs like NOVA, Nature, Masterpiece Theatre, Sesame Street, and Clifford the Big Red Dog (to name just a very few programs.) I can remember watching the French Chef (aka, Julia Childs) and the Frugal Gourmet on PBS. These 2 programs were inspirational in motivating me to get in the kitchen and start cooking!

PBS and local programming on KAMU are all COMMERCIAL FREE! YAY!!! (I am so tired of endless commercials and all the propaganda they spew!) This is a blessing , but with a catch. Because they air no commercials, they sell no advertising. And with no advertising, they bring in no money to support the station and its programming. So the PUBLIC... as in PUBLIC broadcasting (PBS) .... is truly their salvation. Without the dollars from community support all PBS stations around the nation would cease to exist. Image this.... your only viewing choices on television would be COMMERCIAL or broadcast COMMERCIAL TV! How irritating, boring and time wasting!

I encourage each one of you to make a call... make a pledge to your local PBS station the next time they have their Pledge drive.

Look how great the set looks! Very festive and full of holiday cheer. We had 6 members from our group and 2 guests that took time from their busy schedules... (Hey, I mean.. everyone is super busy, right?) to come and have salads provided by the Village Cafe, meet John Bennett, Station Manager, Elaine Hoyak, Development Director, and Vicki Holloway, Marketing Manager, chat it up with one another and spend a few hours taking pledges from callers.

BIG THANKS to:

ADRIAN COLE
JUDGE CHARLIE ELLIS
CHARLIE LINDAHL
FRANNIE DEGELIA
FRANCHESCA GARZA
TRACIE COLE
TUXEDO MASK
SLYCK PECENA

KAMU allowed us to promote our group's big event on the air. Bless the Beasts and the Children, Saturday the 12th of December from 8am to 5pm in the parking lot of VILLAGE FOODS. YAY!!! Thank you so much for that opportunity!

It was a fun night and it felt GREAT to share our time by volunteering for KAMU TV pledge drive.




Bless the Beasts, Bless Our Children and Bless this Earth

KAMU TV Pledge Night with US!!

Sitting around the house all snuggly and warm tonight? Tune into KAMU TV/PBS from 7pm to 10pm and catch some of your group manning the phone banks for KAMU's pledge drive!

Give us a call 845-5656 and make a pledge to KEEP YOUR FAVORITE PROGRAMS on the air... so you can snuggle up and continue to watch them all!!! Plus you will get to talk to one of us!

MAKE a CALL.... MAKE a PLEDGE!!!! TONIGHT!!!

979 845-5656

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

Animal, Vegetable, Miserable

In keeping with the theme and interest of Orren Fox's read, posted yesterday...... here is a submission from Kellie Wilcox-Moore regarding the expressed interests and concerns of "where does the meat we eat come from and how were those animals treated and raised?" Also, in this read the ethical and moralistic questions are raised about "why do we humans feel it necessary to kill animals just to have something to eat?" And, "why do we feel simply because we are intelligent humans, we have the right to abuse, to torture and to kill animals.... just to have something to eat?"

Here now, submitted by Kellie is Animal, Vegetable, Miserable. Thank you Kellie!!

LATELY more people have begun to express an interest in where the meat they eat comes from and how it was raised. Were the animals humanely treated? Did they have a good quality of life before the death that turned them into someone’s dinner?

Some of these questions, which reach a fever pitch in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, pertain to the ways in which animals are treated. (Did your turkey get to live outdoors?) Others focus on the question of how eating the animals in question will affect the consumer’s health and well-being. (Was it given hormones and antibiotics?)

None of these questions, however, make any consideration of whether it is wrong to kill animals for human consumption. And even when people ask this question, they almost always find a variety of resourceful answers that purport to justify the killing and consumption of animals in the name of human welfare. Strict ethical vegans, of which I am one, are customarily excoriated for equating our society’s treatment of animals with mass murder. Can anyone seriously consider animal suffering even remotely comparable to human suffering? Those who answer with a resounding no typically argue in one of two ways.

To read the rest, click here.

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

Talking About Food and Farming with Orren Fox

Charlie Lindahl sent this to me this past week. Much like our own young visionaries we have in this fabulous group, Orren Fox is 12 years old and has an amazing fore site into the philosophy of food and intuitively recognizes, acknowledges and respects the intelligence of all living creatures. Some call him the next Michael Pollen.

Orren is the creator of "Happy Chickens Lay Healthy Eggs." He is a self taught expert in these "funny little birds," as he calls them, & raises chickens for the eggs. You will enjoy this read and appreciate the kindness and acute intelligence of this 12 year old.

In his own words:

When I was in 5th grade, we were asked to do a big research project and I, obviously, did mine on chickens. During that time, I learned a lot about different breeds and how to care for birds, but I also learned a lot about how terribly most of the hens in this country are treated. The hens raised for meat and for eggs are not treated humanely. So, after this project, I began to do more and more research.

The following year, I did a "persuasive essay" for my English class and I learned even more about the issue. Slowly, slowly, I began to wonder not only about hens, but also about other food. Then I saw Food, Inc. and it really opened my eyes to what is happening. I can't figure out why people aren't more pissed off about this. Factory farming makes animals objects - not living, breathing, creatures. People say to me "But, it's just a chicken"... Right, it is a chicken, but I wouldn't say "just." I would say, it's a funny, bossy, silly animal that I am not willing to torture for the sake of cheap, tasteless meat and eggs.

I suppose I do. However, the big difference is that hens don't live in your house and I imagine that makes a big difference. The hens don't just wander over while I am doing homework and sit on my lap, but when I arrive at my coop they definitely sing out "hello", "Glad you are here". Sometimes, on beautiful days, I let my hens out while I am cleaning their coop. They wander around and explore. Every now and then, someone will find a worm and whistle over to the others to come see what she has found. Often, when I am at the back door of the barn scrubbing bowls, a hen will come over and tell me she needs to lay and egg, so I let her in and she heads straight to the nesting box.

For the rest of this story, click here.

And....to read more about this amazing youngster..... check out his blog.

Thank you Charlie for submitting this enjoyable read!

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth