Action for Animals Austin

October 1st was World Vegetarian Day, and October 2nd is World Farm Animals Day. So for the first time ever, today there'll be one big event to bring together all the groups, organizations and members of Austin's vegan, vegetarian, and animal-advocacy community. At Pease Park on Saturday October 2nd, 5pm, come for a huge vegan mega-potluck to celebrate the World Vegetarian/Farm Animals Days, and especially the huge year that 2010 has been so far for our community. Our activities and activism, our great food and fun-loving groups have gotten Austin national recognition. Come join in with all your veggie friends! The major Austin groups will all be there- Vegetarian Network of Austin, Vegans Rock Austin, Austin Progressive Vegetarians, Vegan Drinks Austin and Action for Animals Austin. Plus we're hoping to get as many of our local vegan business owners, restaurateurs, bloggers and "celebrities" to attend as possible. Anyone at all can attend, so please bring friends, especially veg-curious ones! Please bring a vegan dish to feed at least 8 people (obviously not everyone will get to taste every little thing at such a huge potluck!). It's very important that your dish is VEGAN- no animal products of any kind (dairy, egg, meat or chicken broths, animal fats like lard, etc etc). Also, please be sure to bring your own dishes and utensils to eat with. If you have any of your own folding chairs or similar, you might want to bring them, They're not sure how quickly we'll fill the seating area. If you have a folding table you're willing to bring, it stands a good chance of coming in handy! The picnic tables are located at the south end of the park, at 1100 Kingsbury St. We'll be checking in people's potluck dishes so we can attach a card with ingredients, for allergy/dietary purposes. The eating will begin around 5:30. There is VERY limited parking in that area, so try to carpool if you can, and at any rate be prepared to park further away in a surrounding neighborhood. They'll be having entertainment courtesy of singer/songwriter/guitarist Amy Zamarripa. Plus there'll be door prizes to give away from such businesses as Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso, Green Island Catering, Ambrosia Cafe and Gilded Gardenia. There is supposed to be electricity in the park available (it was requested as part of the reservation), but there aren't any promises about how close the outlets will be or if there'll be any extension cords or power strips. If you want to bring a dish that you want to keep warm with an electric appliance, make sure you bring what you need to get power from the outlets to the table. If you're coming as part of another group or organization, they welcome and encourage you to bring whatever printed materials or other stuff you use to inform people about your group. There won't be any tables they can give you to use, but you're welcome to bring your own, and they'll make sure you get recognized during the event. The last thing to tell people is that the purpose of this event is to bring as many of Austin's vegetarians, vegans and animal advocates together so they can meet and make new friends. Many of us are coming as part of one of the big groups we're already active with, so be sure to move around and mingle so you can meet new people from the other groups! In fact, the VNA's last podcast with Daniela Nuñez of VegAustin.com was about this very subject- go to http://vegnetaustin.org/podcasts to listen to the discussion!