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Oak City Move is a podcast on WKNC's 88.1 FM HD1 Raleigh where we highlight people and organizations creating positive change in the triangle and beyond. Oak City Move can be heard on air every other Monday on 88.1 FM HD1 Raleigh or online at wknc.org slash listen. For episodes and more information go to our blog at blog.wknc.org or follow us on soundcloud at wknc881.
Hello WKNC 88.1 Raleigh this song you just heard was House of Mango by Surf Ninja 3. I'm Sophia Magnanini your host and you're listening to Oak City Move. Today we're joined by a very special guest Helene Greenberg, founder and president of Vegvest Expo. So first off I just want to say thank you for taking the time to join me and if you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and also about Vegvest and how it first got started and what's it all about.
Oh that's awesome well hi thank you for having me I really appreciate it and I am the executive director of Triangle Vegfest Vegfest Expos. We produce vegan festivals in the triangle and in multiple states. This year we'll be in or we have been in Georgia, North Carolina and we'll be in New York.
We're all over the state this year for North Carolina including four festivals locally in Raleigh Durham which is pretty cool. That's really cool especially it going all you guys are going kind of all around the east coast. Yes I've been in as much as five states.
Oh wow it's it's it's been a lot. And do you think that it's that's just you're going to try and grow that as it goes on? Well it's an interesting question because I'm actually pulling back and going through attrition as opposed to because I've expanded to the point where we've been as far as Tennessee and for and Florida and for my own sanity and my mental health. I'm kind of pulling it back and that's why there's more stuff local because I live here and it makes it easier for me and this like this is the foundation of pretty much everything I do in my community and basically I go around trying to build community and build veganism and support for it saving the planet saving the animals and of course your health all over the east coast.
And you know next year it might be something different. I will know the answer to that before the end of this year. So that's that's to come if something's fall into place then you might just see me going further west.
Yeah going going further north and just you know helping out as much as I can and spreading the word and having people understand that you know the reason why it's so warm is you know climate change which can be directly impacted by the food that you eat. Which I know my next question was going to be like what the overall mission is but you did kind of explain some of that if you want to go more in depth or kind of add some other things to that. I think the overall mission is to bring people to a festival or an event where it is warm and welcoming and inclusive.
And that's the most important thing veganism is about intersectionality not just about food. So we are open to all people all kinds all sexes all ages just come and enjoy the event. And when you come in I pride myself on it being like a warm welcome hug.
So no intimidation so basically I want you if you're not vegan to come and check it out because when you walk in it will look like any festival that you've been to. Food trucks, shopping, free face painting, DJ so music. It just looks like a place where you can go have fun and shop.
It's super important this year of any of all the years so far is to shop small. That's really cool that just the welcoming because I feel like it's such a stereotype or almost like a that when people choose to be vegetarian or vegan that they're always like or against like any but it's like you guys are just trying to do you what is the right thing and educating and creating in a welcome open space for people to also learn and be educated. It's really it's really special and it's important because it could save someone's life or someone that you know who gets diagnosed with heart disease cancer diabetes strokes whatever it is that is happening because that's typically the impetus the impetus for what somebody looks for a change there's some catalyst that says well let me do a google search you know let me see what's out there and they find the event and fortunately for the fall I have three festivals that have a dedicated education day so the Durham November 1st event at the Armory is an education day and then October 4th in Asheville AB Tech is an education day and then actually it's two dedicated education days then Syracuse New York has education during the event that's really cool yes you can come and learn you can listen we have doctors we have chefs we have cooking demos we have all these things going on where you can learn and shop and have fun which is important because if you want to know more we want to give you the opportunity to know more that's I think that's really important and also we want to eat the food going back to you talking about bringing things kind of back locally have you seen an impact on the local community like since it began since the festival began or like do you see more people curious about the plant-based lifestyles each year like more and more coming well it's interesting because when I moved here in 2011 it was still a vegan friendly place but there was not a single 100% vegan restaurant and since and then you look at Charlotte right Charlotte has a whole bunch of vegan restaurants they kind of were outpacing the triangle I feel I think I'm pretty sure that the triangle is more 100% vegan restaurants now than the rest of the state wow which is which is super cool we have also seen some close which is happening all over the country but we have a ton of amazing vegan restaurants that are owned by very cool people who work very hard to give you delicious food so that's a big change and then COVID actually made it so people spent so much time online so all they did was research and of course you're home and there's you can impact your health so people started learning about the there was an increase in people purchasing vegan whole foods items during COVID you know because you were home you weren't doing anything you want to eat healthier but then we're past COVID and people are kind of back to not really caring about what they're eating so it's kind of it's been in any movement ebbs and flows yeah any movement has its ups and downs and of course we're seeing that in the products that people choose to purchase the company's having a harder time selling so my goal is to get people to understand that this food is amazing and you don't just want to eat it out you you can easily cook it at home it's at your fingertips now veganism food whole food plant based like plant-based cheeses plant-based meats are at your fingertips people who were vegan 40 years ago are just like amazed at you know they used to drink soy milk that was powdered now there's like millions of different dairy-free milks even when you go to your coffee shop which
that is really cool and also it makes it so much easier for people because sometimes people think that they want to start this and then they're like well it might be harder to get this stuff it might be more expensive but now i feel like it's become such a yeah what you're saying like at your fingertips that it's so many more opportunities to start and things to make and places to get these things at
exactly it's very it's mainstream and you can easily go into the supermarket especially locally and you can see like the myriad of choices that you have depending on which store you're going to but even food lion locally has vegan cheese that's a big deal yeah
speaking of like at the fingertips when you're doing the festivals or what i was gonna ask like what ways does it support like local farmers restaurants or small businesses is there a lot of like your well you can explain
i don't know i can see me but i'm shaking my head so yes the the whole premise for me in doing this is to support small businesses it is really turned into that and at this point that i started in 2014 it's 2025 i've worked with thousands of small businesses you could say and they know they have my heart and i don't survive if they don't so i really am pushing people when you come to this festival to come with money and to spend it because you really at this point can keep their doors open by spending money that day it's it's it's it's the worst it's ever been because our economy is like you know wacky but for these small businesses these entrepreneurs they need you so i basically have been telling people like you need soap you need shampoo you need you need these things that you use all the time right cleaning products go to a festival it doesn't have to be mine or your farmer's market just go out and buy those things locally and support these small businesses these people who are like busting their asses to survive as well you really can make the difference in that one day of them keeping their doors open and that's a big deal and that is a very huge premise of what this non-profit was based on veganism is the you know the main thing is everything is vegan but at this point it's kind of morphed into shop small support small business go local come out to the festivals and have a good time and then and the the cool part about that is you get to learn about a way that you can save the planet you can save animals and also improve your health which
yeah that's i was gonna say like it it loops around to because as well as like supporting small businesses but also sustainability and awareness which was gonna which leads right into my next question um how do you guys help promote the sustainability sustainability and environmental awareness i know you're saying your education days or is it just kind of something that is all around the festival
well it's an interesting thing because one of my strictest rules and i have sent vendors to the store is no styrofoam ever ever at my events then they have had to leave on a sunday morning and go to the store or go do another vendor to you because if i find styrofoam i cut you off right there because it is so horrible for the environment it really is and then we try to compost as best we can you know everything like recycling and composting all i'm learning is that it's it's i think it's more feel good than it's actually being done so but at the same time it's minimizing plastic minimizing the things that will stay in a landfill for longer than our lives multiples of our lives actually and you know we need to do that and think consciously about you know a lot of a lot of our attendees will actually bring their own silverware they'll bring their own like containers so they'll have the vendor put it in their containers and it is the mom and daughter that come down from virginia it's almost everything we do and they bring their own containers even to our mac and cheese cook off they like bring their own glass plates and say here put it in here as opposed to using our compostable plate so it's you know if you can get to that point where you you know go to a restaurant you bring your containers for your takeout that's some really cool stuff that you can do that you know i would never tell someone not to you know and i'd love to see like all these businesses never use styrofoam again but you know i also understand that you need to keep your doors open and styrofoam is the least expensive thing you can use so you have to balance that out you know survival kind of trumps sometimes the things that you use but yeah everything about the festival is is thinking about being conscious of the environment and just eating vegan is good for the environment it's the best thing that you can do to help save this planet
i love that especially because even if people like you're saying come in to the festival not know much or even like not practice that much of like sustainability they they'll see the people around them and it'll kind of make them think like hmm maybe maybe i should do this or like maybe i should bring my own bag to the grocery store or something like that or like my own like stuff like that which is very very important and i my next question is also kind of something that we've been talking about but if you could go um go into detail a little bit more about the educational workshops and then also the other activities that you have at the festival
to help people like connect with what actually goes on right because the goal is to keep people there for as long as you can stay because you know a good person i can say a good person that's not fair a person who knows how to veg fest knows to walk into the festival this for any event walk into the festival and you just walk through the whole thing don't shop walk through the whole thing because that impulse buy you could be really upset in about 10 minutes so just walk through survey look around and then do your next walk through and start buying typically people start with food they get on the line get their food then they eat and then i'm like go shop shop the festival and then you're going to eat again because there's so much food at the event and then people go into dessert and of course there's drinks there so there's a certain way to veg fest yeah it's like to me to me is that's the best way to do it because then you don't you don't see a t-shirt and like buy it and then like five minutes later see another t-shirt and go if i hadn't spent the money on that t-shirt what about this t-shirt you know it's just it just it's just awkward so it's one of the best ways you can support small to do that and then the education days gosh we've got doctors we've got chefs we have people who can talk on pretty much any topic that's related to the environment to the animals and to your health and that's who you need it's also diverse lineup of people coming because you want people especially in a diverse community like durham like atlanta you know people want to sit in front of someone who they can relate to and sometimes that means a person of color wants to sit in front of a person of color doctor who actually has the same genetics and same background that they can say i understand like how you grew up and what you've grown up eating and this is how we can do it in a vegan way right and this is how you can do it in a healthier way and this is the these are the diseases that you are that your families are suffering from and so what we can do to make that better so that's a really big piece of that education really big piece is that people can relate to who's there and that the topics are are something that people want to listen to and that the people who are speaking are enjoyable to listen to you see otherwise you know you could have walked away i don't want anyone snoozing because that's no fun and that's not fun for the speaker either so everyone i tend to bring is a good speaker and can engage the audience and help them to learn and also are very engaging to be able to come and talk to them personally so that's that piece and then of course the free face painting is a big deal in georgia they really the last event i did was in in marietta georgia and on saturday i was just basically telling people i said it's not just for kids the face painting and it's not just for faces it's your elbow it's your knee it's your shoulder i don't care not not your breasts and not that far but it's the rest of your you know and a lot of the adults had got face painted it got painted at the festival i was so happy to see it because i love seeing the kids but seeing the adults do it too and also to the kids who don't want their face touched i'm like i say to the parents we can do it on their hand you know you can all get matching you go do it's something that i pay for and that we pay for as a non-profit to keep the kids happy so that the parents can stay because if kids are happy parents can stay longer so we learned that lesson back in 2015 and that's like one of the big parts and of course then i also like created these a i coloring sheets so i printed those out brought them so the kids could color and they were all gone by the end of the two days which was neat so and we usually have some more stuff but i don't have the capacity to bring more things so like in raleigh they have a food truck that they can put out that's part of the venue so that's cool if i can fit it i'll bring it but i really like cornhole and stuff like that i don't have the ability to bring it unless i have another car so pretty much that's the event and then the food trucks the shopping the dj plays great music that's relatable to everyone who's there keeps you moving keeps you vibing like if you like this song you can hear it but if you don't like this song it's just in the background so you're still able to talk to the vendors the vendors are still able to sell but it's not silent yeah it's just it's there's just an energy going through and you you perk up when it's something you enjoy and then you kind of don't hear it when you are like that's not my favorite song and then you just kind of bop in and then you're just like oh and then it's over and you just keep moving that's pretty much the feel of the event and i just run around the whole day and say
i love that it because it does sound like this is just a lot the whole festival is almost surrounded by or centered on inclusivity and educating and everyone coming together community and just helping educate one another helping us stay healthy all the help stay entertained which is really really important and really cool and i feel like a lot of people when they think of something like they might not think of this but it's like once you go and actually try and you see how cool it is and it's like oh wait yeah maybe this is something for me like which is very important right
exactly it's planting seeds and you know for seeds you have to water them and you have to help them to grow so each year we have these events and you know people will come back and they'll tell me they were there the previous year they weren't vegan and now they're trying it because there's no pressure the best thing you can do is just start replacing you know start start replacing like a hamburger with a beyond burger say even if you do that one day a week or if you just do it for two weeks you see how you feel you know because even eating processed meat that's vegan is still not good for you so the more whole foods you go the better you're going to feel it's just amazing and you know you just have to have that willpower to want to go that direction and you hope that it's not because you were diagnosed with something especially in this day and age i feel like it's like it's been hard or from a lot of people it's hard to be able to get those whole foods get those like they they're always kind of thinking about time cost that stuff where we live in like a society where a lot of the things that are cheap fast are not that good for you and not that good for the environment so it really just is taking the steps and being like this might take a little longer for me to make or might be a little more but at the end of the day it'll help me it'll help my environment and help the community small businesses etc which i think is really important right and it doesn't have to cost a lot of money because you can buy rice not expensive you can buy a bag of beans not expensive and i use an instant pot you can throw them in the instant pot you know the rice first then you can add the beans after the rice is kind of almost fully cooked mix that together put seasoning in there you can turn it into a soup you can eat it with rice and beans you can put some salsa you can put some vegan cheese you can turn into a chili it's so versatile and with whatever spices you choose to put in there you have a meal that is super inexpensive very filling and also super healthy and it's also nice because it's like you can kind of cater to your tastes and whatnot like it's very much like they're all the same ingredients but you can put them in differently and see all see what's next which i was gonna ask kind of later but i guess since we're kind of is there any kind of meals for like for new newly vegetarians newly vegans that you would recommend as like kind of either fast cheap or just really good that you like really love well i think one of the things that people like mac and cheese right super easy to make and it can be it doesn't have to be like overly fattening because it's what you put in there like when i make mac and cheese the pasta instead of putting oil to coat the pasta i use a plant-based milk so use the plant-based milk which will also add to creaminess nutritional yeast is like your best friend it's that cheesy flavor super easy not expensive like a quarter cup goes in there and you know because i basically cook the pasta like 15 minutes maybe 20 max i could be eating and make it super simple cook the pasta do all that day and then put the you know put the plant-based milk to coat it nothing too crazy i use like a plant-based cheese i'll use maybe a quarter cup it doesn't have to be but if you want you throw the whole bag in there because it'll be even more cheesy i lean more on the healthy side and then sometimes i'll have peas in there some a lot of corn in there i'll cook i'll cook the peas with the pasta to make it easy and then mix that up throw in your spices with the nooch i actually love vegan mayo is like a little secret ingredient throwing some vegan mayo in there gives it some tang also dijon mustard put that all together or miso go in there too that does and you mix it all together and you're eating because you'll cook you'll the cheese will melt over the stove after like you throw the pasta and all that together it's still hot so it all melts in together and you put it back on the stove so it's not on but the heat's still going and you're done and another way is to take cashews put them into a blender with miso and spices a little lemon juice and like water don't forget the water and mix that up and put that into pasta and eat and that could go italian that can go mac and cheese that can go french that can go any which would go mexican all depending on what spices you put in there and again you could be eating in 20 minutes those sounds really good i know i'm like remembering these my ideas for tonight's dinner but that does show it's like there's so many ways to do things that you you wouldn't really think of or that almost we've kind of been programmed to be like oh well but it's it's amazing yeah that sounds really good it's super simple and it's something that you're familiar with that you'll eat and it's probably one of my favorite meals to make you know is to meet the mac and cheese i had it the other day i just finished it yesterday i made it like four days ago five days ago so i just finished that you know pretty much that recipe with the i didn't put miso or mustard in it and i wish i had
no that does sound delicious especially think i feel like people always think that it's like oh vegan i'm only going to eat like carrots or something like only but it's like no you can make you can make really good stuff i mean not saying carrots and like vegetables aren't good like but it's
it's not as strict as people think that it would be right which you can make flavorful filling meals that are healthy that lean healthy and you can do it very easily because the reason why meat tastes good isn't the meat it's the seasonings you put on it so take those seasonings and apply it to tofu take those seasonings apply it to seitan take those seasonings apply it to your pasta dish i mean super easy well it is i'm also a cook that doesn't really measure yeah the recipe recipe is a guideline so those for those people who like need a recipe to be exactly i'm not your person but if i every time i follow a recipe to the tea i don't like it so i have to change it using the measuring cup right and tasting it and it's like well i don't have that spice so i'll just use this because i mean i'm not going to not make something unless there's it's like a really important thing like baking soda you know like you can't bake you can't bake without something and i'm like well i guess i can't make things i don't have that but everything else it's like oh calls for this oh i have that i can use that and i know i know i can do that yeah so and potatoes are a fantastic food that's super healthy absolutely amazing in the air fryer in the microwave in the oven you don't need any fat whatsoever you can just eat potatoes left and right and as dr medugal said it's just like one of the healthiest foods on the planet which i know now i'm getting kind of hungry you know we were talking about this but yeah it really shows just how how easy it is for people to start get into it and also yeah it doesn't have to be this big chore it doesn't have to be these crazy things it can be things that you've already know and like and you're just kind of changing it a little or i'm trying to think of the right word but um i think it's making them the highlight yes they what you considered sides can be the highlight of your dish and probably should be more the highlight of your dish even if they are your sides because if you make them in the health and the healthier way you should be eating more of those and you should be eating meat just in general and especially dairy if anything i tell people just don't don't eat dairy at all it's insidious
but then going back to the festival uh what are some challenges that go into organizing a festival like this or how do you try to overcome them
well in year 11 probably the biggest obstacle i've had is covid and i still did festivals during covid so i just i did one in nashville in 2020 mass temperature checks you know two days somebody had to spread people out and people did come out and they shopped which was what was needed but you know it takes it takes a talent and a certain human being to do this because there's a lot of organization there's a lot of stuff that's going on and i have that talent so it's hard because people look at me and go how do you make it look so easy and it's not always easy sometimes there's a lot of screaming and yelling inside my walls of my house because people it's working with people and people can be frustrating but at the same time people can be absolutely amazing so the the heart the biggest stressors for me now are the vendors signing up they're waiting longer and longer to register like for georgia i think i had 18 vendors sign up in six days about two weeks within two weeks of the event that's stressful yeah it's like super stressful and you just kind of i just kind of have to come back to center and just kind of go it's going to be fine and then of course you need the attendees to come out you need attendees come out and spend money in a time where things where people don't have a lot of discretionary funds so if you're going to come out you know and you want to support this you want to support our vendors save up to do that or you know this is the place to like i said buy your soap eat you know you don't just have to eat lunch there you can actually buy food and eat it over the course of the week it doesn't just have to be that day because people like i'm so full and i'm like well there's tomorrow it's also later because i promise you're going to be hungry later so if you don't want to go home and think gosh i wish i got another because you might not see that vendor some of them travel you might not see that vendor until the next one that is that
because it is it's like not just going to the festival but it's almost like the grocery trip for the week you can get everything you need and everything and then you can take time like trying it out and being like oh wait
