Activism

‘Giving Animals a Future’: An Educational, Empowering PETA Event

On September 28, PETA supporters and business partners attended an inspiring day of workshops, networking, and—of course—delicious vegan dining to ponder this very question. The “Giving Animals a Future” event ended with a festive cocktail party and a vegan buffet fundraiser.

Part of the event's festive vegan buffet.

We’re grateful to the companies that catered the workshop portion of the day, including Follow Your Heart, Pink Salt Cuisine, and Yoga-urt. Some key topics of the workshops included ending animal experimentation and veganizing everything, with a special preview of Baskin-Robbins’ new vegan ice cream flavors.

Attendees enjoying live entertainment by Mariachi Romanza.

Highlights of the evening fundraiser included a delectable vegan buffet dinner and a cocktail reception catered by Jennie Cook’s Catering, which created many delicious dishes, including vegan paella and vegan empanadas, made with Beyond Meat’s newest products: Beyond Beef and Hot Italian Beyond Sausage. Wolfgang Puck Catering dished up more scrumptious food, including May Wah vegan meat products, and Marsatta Chocolate presented a tasting station so that guests could end the night with a sweet treat. Attendees also enjoyed live entertainment featuring the sounds of Mariachi Romanza.

One of the delicious vegan dishes at the event.

Delicious vegan paella at the event.

Special guest Kevin Nealon—known for his popular and celebrity-studded web series, Hiking With Kevin—regaled guests with anecdotes about his animal advocacy, including his vegetarian-themed stand-up comedy. Also, U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) spoke about PETA’s leading role in the effort to end animal experiments, including the way she helped us end maternal deprivation experiments on baby monkeys and the Coast Guard’s pig and goat training labs. She called on National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins to count all animals experimented on by the agency and release the numbers to the public and, crucially, to devise a plan to reduce that number—things that NIH has never been required to do.

Special Guest Kevin Nealon

Special guest U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard

PETA would like to thank the following companies for their delicious vegan food donations for the event:

And we’d like to thank these companies that generously donated items included in our gift bags and door prizes:

Guests finished the day feeling informed and inspired. They were reminded that as long as we have people who care about animals and are willing to translate their passion into action, we can create a better future for living, feeling beings.