Veggie Pride Parade in New York — 05.18.08
If only I had some other reason to be in New York in May...
The first annual Veggie Pride Parade will take place in Greenwich Village, NY on Sunday, May 18th. Appropriately enough, it begins in the old "Meat Packing District." The parade will even have floats! At the conclusion there will be a rally in Washington Square Park with live music, speakers, exhibitors, and contests. It all sounds like great fun.
The parade sponsors will be hosting two contests -- a Poster Contest and a Costume Contest. There are many categories, but my favorites include: Best poster, bacterial-contamination theme; Best poster, manure theme; Most-things-hanging-off-it costume; Most convincing costume—enough to make the meat eaters go veg; Best edible costume.
There will even be a veggie wedding. Penelo Pea Pod, the Veggie Pride mascot, will be getting married at 4pm, after the rally. (Although I can't tell if this is a real wedding or a stunt.) They do ask you to bring rice to throw at the happy couple afterwards, something I'd long believed was taboo. But according to Snopes.com, the people who confirm or refute urban legends, throwing rice is safe for birds, but potentially harmful to people who might slip and injure themselves on the hard grains of rice. But I digress...
This looks to be a very fun way to educate and introduce a large number of people to a vegetarian way of life. If you're in the NYC region and would like to help out, the Veggie Pride people are looking for volunteers. This page has a listing of all the things you can do to help out. I'm looking forward to seeing the videos afterwards.
Related Information:
Wow! This sounds like fun!
Doesn’t it though? If it’s a huge success in NY, maybe they’ll consider expanding their efforts to other cities.
We’re looking at May 17, 2009 for next year’s parade.
http://www.veggieprideparade.org