Learn about The Eugene VeganFest and the non-profit organization behind it, Compassionate Living, on this week's "That Vegan Show."
Eugene VeganFest, May 4, Eugene, Oregon: Hope Bohanec shared, The Eugene VeganFest is a celebration of compassionate and sustainable living with fantastic food, innovative vendors, and inspiring speakers. You can learn about how you can curb climate change, learn about eco products, save animals from suffering, and help your body thrive. There will be dozens of local vendors featuring plant-based food and drink, non-profits doing community work, and animal sanctuaries that rescue animals in need. There will also be two rooms of informative presentations: The Impact Room will feature speakers focussed on ethical and environmental reasons to be vegan and the Vitality Room will focus on health and nutritional benefits of a plant-based diet. There is also a kids' activity area.
Compassionate Living is a 501c3 non-profit organization working to end farmed animal suffering and encourage vegan living. Through educational activities, community building, compassionate and inclusive outreach, framing veganism as a justice issue, while educating on the sentience and of animals, we hope to be part of achieving a just, compassionate, non-violent, vegan world. Some of their projects include The Humane Hoax Project, The Ahisma Living Project, The Sonoma County Vegfest, and the Eugene VeganFest.
One of the speakers at the Eugene VeganFest joins me during this interview, Erin Wing. Erin Wing is currently serving as the Deputy Director of Investigations at Animal Outlook, a nonprofit animal advocacy organization based in Washington, DC and Los Angeles, CA. She has also previously worked as an undercover investigator. Over the course of 2 years, she went on to complete 4 investigations in the dairy, chicken, and aquaculture industries, including the first-ever undercover expose of salmon aquaculture in the U.S.
You will also meet the Founder and Executive Director of Compassionate Living, thirty-year career activist Hope Bohanec. Having gathered experience and wisdom about animal advocacy through her long trajectory, Hope participated in important movements in her youth such as Greenpeace and Earth First! as well as organized anti-circus, anti-fur, and anti-vivisection campaigns and protests throughout the 1990s.
In the 2000s, as the movement shifted its focus to animals used for food, Hope shifted from radical, direct action activism to vegan education and compassionate advocacy. Hope spent fifteen years working for the national non-profit organizations United Poultry Concerns and In Defense of Animals and has published two books on the subject of humanewashing and greenwashing: The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat? and The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs. She created and hosts the Hope for the Animals Podcast, now in its third year with downloads on six continents.
If you are interested in attending: Eugene VeganFest, Sunday, May 4, 2025, 10 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Lane Event Center