Sunday, April 11, 2010

Green Goodness

Who: VN Editorial Assistant Abigail Wick, VN Office Manager Lyndsay Orwig, and the rest of the VN crew
What: SF's first springtime Green Festival
Where: San Francisco's Concourse Exhibition Center, San Francisco, Calif.
When: April 9–11, 2010
Why: The gathering of like minds for a good, old-fashioned green time

The Scoop: Last weekend, San Francisco hosted one of the country’s premier environmental-justice conferences, the Green Festival, sponsored in part by VegNews Magazine. This event marked the first spring iteration of the event, which is usually held just once per year in cities across the country. Despite the torrential deluge outdoors, inside the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center, attendees created a warm, hospitable atmosphere. Some of the special guests included musical artist Chuck D of hip-hop group Public Enemy, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, Democracy Now journalist Amy Goodman, along with another 120 green speakers, educators, and activists.

Lyndsay and I handle the VegNews booth.

Three hundred and fifty eco-businesses erected booths and promoted all manner of goods and services. Sundry offerings included the homemade vegan corn dogs and garlic fries that Lyndsay and I devoured. Domestic items encompassed everything from green-manufactured, organic-cotton, screen printed dresses to soft hemp linens. Services ranged from a sustainable construction company to on-site, hour-long massages. Media purveyors varied from the local (Oakland-based anarcho publisher PM Press), to the progressive (Utne Magazine), to the prestigious (The New York Times). There was also a special sighting—Hollywood actor Danny Glover, a Bay Area local, came strolling through the Green Festival late Sunday afternoon.

VegNews' youngest (and shortest) fan!

All in all, the Green Festival was a fantastic event that brought sunlight to an otherwise wet, cold day in our City by the Bay.

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