PETA President Ingrid Newkirk hosted a fundraiser and award ceremony in Toronto on September 21. The three awardees—Doug McNish, Lauren Toyota, and Tina Stokes—deserve widespread recognition for their efforts to make the world a more vegan-friendly place and for making it so easy for their fellow vegans to enjoy mouthwatering meals!

Please give it up for these awardees:

Doug McNish is a vegan executive chef and restaurateur who makes vegan versions of popular meaty meals. His local vegan diner, Mythology, is setting a great example for others to follow—and they are. He is a vegan consultant, has won several awards, and has written cookbooks. He’s an inspiring force in the animal rights movement with his effective consulting, writing, teaching, and continual vegan advocacy, and he greatly deserved to receive PETA’s Compassionate Business Award.

Lauren Toyota not only hosts several television shows and social media channels but also has a vegan business and a new cookbook titled Vegan Comfort Classics. People are taking notice: She has a quarter-million followers on Instagram and half a million on YouTube—and now she’s received PETA’s Hero to Animals Award. She’s demonstrating—through her cookbook, social media accounts, and business channels—that being vegan can truly be exciting.

Tina Stokes is a PETA Business Friend who created tasty vegan cheeses to help her husband ditch dairy “products.” But she didn’t stop there. She launched Vegan Stokes Cheese, which is continuously getting more traction and delivers throughout North America. PETA served the company’s delicious vegan cheeses at the event, showing everyone in attendance why Tina merited PETA’s Compassionate Business Award. Her innovations and dedication are helping people go vegan while also getting their cheese fix.

If you know of any other compassionate individuals who deserve some recognition, please feel free to tell everyone about them in the comment field below.