Brazos Valley Earth Day 2010 (Invite to Participate)

15th Annual
Brazos Valley Earth Day
Wolf Pen Amphitheater
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
11 AM till 4 PM

Greetings Earthlings!

As you guys may know, Earth Day is coming up in April. Every year, the Brazos Valley holds an event to celebrate it, and this year, it's going to be held at the Wolf Pen Creek Amphitheater. If you've never been there, you can see directions here--->Directions

There's gonna be...
Music, Food, Exhibits, Displays, Demonstrations, Activities for Kids, and more...

All relating to the environment!

It's gonna be educational and entertaining. AND admission is free!

I think it'll be a lot of fun, and so I really encourage you to come and to spread the word.

HERE ARE OUR AWESOME VOLUNTEERS!!!

*GAIL OSTENSEN 10am to noon
*KRISTA MAY 10am to noon
*KELLIE MOORE 11am to 1pm
*CHERYL ANNE CHANDLER all day
*ADITYA SHRIVASTAVA noon to 4pm
*JOHN BORDEN all day (will share our table)
*LAURA THOMAS
*SLYCK PECENA all day

Building on that, Vision Voice Veg*n'z has got a spot reserved for the event. So, we're going to get to have a table set up where we can hang out, pass out goodies, flyers, and let people know how much we support the environment, and how meatless eating relates to the environment as well. Who knows? You may learn a few things yourself.

At about 9:30 we'll set up. 9:30 - 10:30 will be the only occasion vehicles will be allowed in the circle drive off of Colgate. When booth set is complete, they ask that we park along Colgate and in surrounding areas. The parking lot with the circle drive will not be available for parking.

At 10am, we'll start doing shifts at the table. We're thinking 2-hour shifts, depending on how many people we've got. And that'll go until the event is over at 4. Than we will need to stay and help tear down.

WE HAVE A TENT.... MAYBE TWO!!! YAY!!!

SEE YOU THERE!!!!

Thoughts and Prayers, Peace and LOVE
Cherylanne Chandler

And check this out! I only recently found out about this, but found it very interesting. Earth Hour is TOMORROW. Saturday, March 27th. From 8:30 to 9:30, millions of people all over the world turn off their lights. For just one hour. Join us.

Both of these videos are really good, and they may just make an impact:
http://www.myearthhour.org/earth-hour-video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FclcMfzjwug
I know that we need a whole lot more than just one hour once every year... but hey, it's a baby step... and it's still beautiful to see people come together like that.

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

April 6th Meetup... Coming up!

Come join us for the April 6th meetup!!

6:30pm at the fabulous Village Downtown!

Mary Strauss, the Sustainability Programs Coordinator City of Bryan, Environmental Services Division, will share valuable info with us about Environmentally Friendly Yard Care. It is that time of year again and we are working in our yards and gardens.

And of course the Village will fix up a DEEEElicious menu for us to enjoy. Please come and welcome Mary to our group.

When you get a moment......Please RSVP to Franchesca Garza just so she can let the Village know the number of folks that will be eating.

Plan on a big group discussion for the May meetup. Among other topics....be thinking of what you want from this group..... what directions you want to see it proceed....and what events you want us to be involved in.

Also, Earth Day April 17th is coming up and I have reserved a spot for us. I will provide the table. Now all we need is a tent and volunteers to host the event! Our sweet little Cheryl Anne Chandler will make up some great posters and flyers for us to hand out. Anyone else that wants to promote a topic synonymous with Earth Day, let me know and we can get flyers made up. We have some bike safety flyers left over from Green First Friday that we can hand out. And.... of course we'll need volunteers to make up some delicious veg*n goodies to hand out like we did at Green First Friday!!! Look forward to everyone's involvement in this great event!!






Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

All Natural Produce Wash

I’ve been asking around about a good safe produce wash. I always DO organic as much as possible, but I must have my broccoli fix every week and most weeks I can’t find organic broccoli.

I’ve wanted to start washing my non-organic produce for awhile now and just never took the time to do some research...at least not until this past weekend when the Hubby Bear brought home some green grapes from SAM’s. I looked at those grapes.....you could just see the dusty white film all over each grape.... I thought to myself, “No way! At least until we can wash them with something that is safe and effective.”

So, after polling several folks regarding a safe product on the market that works.... Boots McCann, one of our members, came up with the number one answer! She gave me a recipe that is used by the locals in Mexico to wash their produce. It is all natural and made of products that you most likely have in your kitchen right now!








WATER



VINEGAR




BAKING SODA






LEMON JUICE

That’s it!

The recipe can be found here. I tried it this morning and it works great! I feel much better about eating grocery produce when I can’t get hold of my organic.

Thanks Boots!!


Yours In Health

Slyck Pecena
Founder & Leader

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

March Meetup Scoop

I was unable to make the March meetup at the Village Cafe, so one of our members wrote up a brief description. Read up on what Cheryl Anne Chandler shares about the meetup. And check out the great pics that Franchesca Garza snapped! BIG thanks to you two!

Our yummy menu (Vegan Dinner Specials) looked something like this

Spring greens soup
Avocado and spicy sprouts sandwich on focaccia bred w/ dijon, cucumber, and carrot and a side
Broccoli and sweet pea Alfredo pasta
Pasta Primavera
Apple and almond cobbler a la mode for dessert!

Jenn Atkins spoke for the March meetup. She is a certified nutritional consultant, a student of herbology, and has worked for BNF for over 20 years. She briefly asked about lifestyles of the group and why we had chosen that particular path. She found that most of us were in it for health reasons and animal rights. I also mentioned the environmental relevance of a meatless lifestyle as well as spirituality.

Jenn discussed her thoughts for any diet. She explained how no two bodies are exactly the same and that different people may have different needs. Therefore, it is every individual's responsibility to develop their own personal awareness and to pay attention to their own body, their own needs, rather than putting all their stock in labels, books, and someone else's words.

The focus of conversation was on connecting to our food and being in touch with ourselves. We discussed the importance of how our food was raised or grown, how the food was prepared/processed, and the affects that it has on us. She mentioned not just food, but everything around us that we're exposed to. Water. Clothing. Material. Stress. Where did it come from and what affect does it have on me?

Jenn concluded by restating her main point, "No matter what you're told, you have to consider: 'What's good for me?'."

Welcome to our 2 newbies!! Cassie Baxter & Georgia Vergos. Hope you guys will become regulars!

Next month, Mary Strauss, the Sustainability Programs Coordinator for the City of Bryan, Environmental Services Division, will chat with us about upcoming events that we can get involved in.

I hope you will come and enjoy great food, interesting company and Mary Strauss. Please welcome her and thank her for sharing her valuable time with us!

APRIL 6th, Tuesday
6:30pm, Village Cafe

Join us for our May meetup as we will have a group "chat it up.” We can all join together, get to know each other, talk (among other topics,) about what we want from the group, where we see the group heading and what impact we want to make on the community!!

Yours in Health!

Slyck Pecena

Founder and Leader

Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

Vision Voice Veg*n'z March Meet-up

Hey Everyone!

The next Vision Voice Veg*n'z meet-up will be on
Wednesday, March 10th
6:30pm at Village Cafe.

Please let me know if you will be present and if you plan on eating dinner. Our speaker is Jenn Atkins. She is a certified nutritional consultant, a massage therapist, and a student of herbology. The topic of discussion will be "Living Sustainably".

Hope you see you there!

Thanks,

-Franchesca
chesca.m@gmail.com





Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

February 2010 Meet Up

What an awesome presentation Betsy (Boots) McCann shared at the Village Cafe for our February 9th meetup. She shared her knowledge in the most casual way about the health and environmental advantages & benefits of buying organic produce.

Boots is a Vegan and is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications. She currently works with the Farmer Solidarity Project teaching organic production methods to indigenous farmers in Guatemala, and in summer 2009 completed an internship with the Rodale Institute, where she also worked as a Communications Strategist.

About 15 Veg*n'z showed up to listen to Boots and to endulge in a delicious dinner. The Village, once again, out did it self with a mouth-watering menu for our group. Offering a choice of vegan pita pizza with sweet potatoe french fries or bean tex-mex casserole. Dessert was vegan chocolate cheese cake. We Veg*n'z do eat so good!!!.

BIG THANKS to Boots for taking time from her very busy schedule to speak to the group!

Our next meet up is Wednesday, March 10th 6:30pm at the Village Cafe. Jenn Atkins is our speaker. She is a certified nutritional consultant, a massage therapist, and a student of herbology. The topic of discussion will be "Living Sustainably".

Slyck Pecena
Founder & Leader





Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth

Creamy Spinach Pasta

HOWDY everyone!

Here is an awesome looking dish from one of our members.... Franchesca Garza...complete with recipe! I am anxious to try it out myself.

Just another example of how good we Vegans eat!!


BIG THANKS Franchesca for contributing to "OUR" blogsite!!


Creamy Spinach Pasta

Note: You might want to half the ingredients in this recipe, because I doubled them. I just didn’t want to waste any of the coconut milk. So, this is exactly how I made it.

The recipe is as follows:

1- can coconut milk (about 400ml)
2- tablespoons lemon juice
½ - tsp fine sea salt or regular salt
4 – garlic gloves
1- cup raw spinach
4- tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 small bag of your choice of pasta (about 7 oz.)
Nutmeg seasoning for flavoring
Pepper for flavoring

Sauce:
Put coconut milk, lemon juice, salt, garlic gloves, spinach, & nutritional yeast into blender. Sprinkle pepper & nutmeg into blender for flavoring. Puree until super smooth. (It’s okay to have tiny little pieces of spinach visible, it makes the sauce look pretty).


Cook pasta according to package instructions but remove with a couple of minutes left. Drain and place back into pot. Pour the sauce over and mix. Continue to cook over a low heat until sauce is hot enough to serve. When ready, taste and adjust with more nutmeg, pepper and salt as needed.

Serve and enjoy!!


**You can also toast some pine-nuts in a little of Earth Balance in a skillet. Sprinkle over pasta for added décor and a yummy added taste.











Bless the Beasts, Bless our Children and Bless this Earth