I was tabling at the Denman Car Free Day on Sunday with Alison and Neda. Our booth was right at the Davie end of the festival, right by the beach. It was a beautiful day, and we had a great time. I can’t even remember a single negative encounter to tell you about.

Liberation BC booth on Denman Street

There was one interaction that really stuck with me, though. Late in the afternoon, a group of four twenty-somethings and a baby came over to our table from the beach. Turns out they’d just been talking about going vegetarian, and–though they didn’t realize it was us–they’d already decided to stop buying Procter & Gamble products after seeing our demonstration on Robson a few weeks ago.

Neda and I talked to them for a while, and I think they took one of each leaflet we had out (and we had a LOT). The impression I got was that they wanted to go veg, but some of them were worried it would be hard to do. One guy was especially worried that it would be easy to go veg here, but hard to stay veg when they went home to Mexico. I told him that it might be hard to find veg-friendly restaurants in some places, but once you get some practice cooking veg*an meals for yourself, you can be veg anywhere. I also told him to remember that the important thing is to make the most long-term difference you can for the animals; it’s far better to reduce the amount of animal products you’re eating than to make no change at all, even if that means you’re not quite vegetarian. We talked a bit about “humane” meat too.

Here’s what stuck with me, though: at the end, as they were leaving, the woman with the baby in a stroller told us, “You’ve changed a whole family today. We’re going vegetarian, thanks to you.” Despite the fact that that’s not strictly true–it’s much more their accomplishment than ours, their honesty & courage facing up to the facts about animal agriculture–nothing’s going to top that feeling for a while. It was a good day.

We also had a table on Main Street. Here are some photos from there.

Blake, a super activist giving away stickers

A thirsty dog has a drink from our water bowl

Layne, doing some great vegan outreach, as usual

Mobbed by compassionate people