Boston Vegetarian Society
Founded | 1986 |
---|---|
Type | Educational Charity |
04-3082813[1][2] | |
Registration no. | 043082813[3] |
Focus | Veganism, Vegetarianism |
Location |
|
Area served | Eastern Massachusetts |
Method | Popular Education |
Members | [Figure needed] |
Subsidiaries | None |
Revenue | As of September 2012 $52,434[1][2][4] |
Endowment | As of September 2012 $127,324[1][4] |
Employees | [Figure needed] |
Volunteers | [Figure needed] |
Website |
www |
Affiliate member of North American Vegetarian Society (NAVS), Vegetarian Union of North America (VUNA), and International Vegetarian Union (IVU) |
The Boston Vegetarian Society (BVS) began in 1986. In 1998,[3] it was incorporated in Massachusetts as an educational non-profit. In July 1998,[1][2] it was granted 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status by the IRS.
The BVS provides info on events and related organizations,[5] hosts the annual Boston Vegetarian Food Festival (BVFF), holds cooking classes, and promotes vegetarianism through mass transit advertising, outreach at fairs and festivals, and monthly free educational seminars which since their beginning have attracted some of the best-informed and most popular leaders and voices in the vegetarian and vegan movement.[4] BVS "seeks to make a better world for people, animals, and the earth through advancing a healthful vegetarian diet and a compassionate ethic." BVS provides education, encouragement, and community support for vegetarians and for anyone wishing to learn more about a healthy, environmentally friendly, and humane way of life.[6] According to several member's reports and earlier versions of the BVS website:[7]
- BVS is an all-volunteer organization with membership open to anyone who supports its purposes.
- BVS events are open to members and non-members.
- When it was first incorporated, its voting membership was open to vegetarians and non-voting membership was open to non-vegetarians. However, around 2009, the BVS Board voted to confine voting membership to Board members so that it could maintain its IVU membership without presenting a two-tiered membership to supporters. IVU member societies are required to vest all executive (decision-making) authority exclusively in vegetarians, defined as lacto-ovo (or stricter) vegetarians. Verification is difficult in organizations with two-tiered membership based upon self-reported behaviour.
- All Food at BVS is vegan and alcohol-free, according to the earliest documents (bylaws and articles of incorporation) of the Boston Vegetarian Society.
Boston Vegetarian Society and its programs are run by an all-volunteer Board. Members do not have voting rights.
Boston Vegetarian Food Festival (BVFF)
Since 1996, the Boston Vegetarian Society has annually hosted the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival (BVFF) in October or November.[8][9][10][11][12]
It was first held on May 5, 1996,[13][14] at the Howard W. Johnson Athletics Center at MIT[15][16] because MIT graduate students affiliated with the MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG) (as of 2010 renamed MIT Vegetarian Group) provided a substantial proportion of the initial organizing effort. In addition, in October of that year, they held a World Vegetarian Day celebration outdoors on the Boston Common.
The second BVFF, in October 1997, was held at Bunker Hill Community College. This combined as one combined event their indoor vegetarian food festival and the sense of the World Vegetarian Day event, since the combined event would be perpetually held around October or November.
Since 1998,[17][18] it has been held at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in the Roxbury Crossing section of Boston, across the street from Roxbury Community College and the Mosque for the Praising of Allah of the Islamic Society of Boston.
Well-known vegan and vegetarian speakers at Boston Vegetarian Society events
- Neal D. Barnard, MD
- Gene Baur, Farm Sanctuary
- Michael Bedar
- Rynn Berry (deceased)
- T. Colin Campbell, PhD
- Robert Cheeke
- Brenda Davis, RD
- Karen Dawn
- Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., MD
- Joel Fuhrman, MD
- Michael Greger, MD
- Alex Hershaft, PhD
- Ellen Jaffe Jones
- Melanie Joy, PhD
- Roberta Kalechofsky, PhD
- Marti Kheel, PhD (deceased)
- Michael Klaper, MD
- Walter 'Killer Kowalski' (deceased)
- Randall Lockwood, PhD
- Howard Lyman
- Jeffrey Moussant Masson
- Victoria Moran
- Isa Chandra Moskowitz
- Ingrid Newkirk
- Dean Ornish, MD
- Wayne Pacelle
- Alex Pacheco, PETA cofounder
- Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
- Ron Pickarski, CEC
- Paul Shapiro, HSUS
- Peter Singer, PhD
- Kim Stallwood
- Paul Waldau, JD, DPhil
- Ann Wigmore (deceased)
- Kenneth G. Williams
- Kim A. Williams Sr., chief of the cardiology division at Rush University Medical Center
- Steven M. Wise, JD
Others
- Danielle Nierenberg
- David J. Hunter, currently Dean for Academic Affairs and formerly Acting Dean at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Vincent Gregory Professor and Director of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention.[19]
See also
References
- 1 2 3 4 "NCCS Organization Profile - Boston Vegetarian Society". Nccsweb.urban.org. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
- 1 2 3 "Nonprofit Organization Lookup". Melissadata.com. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
- 1 2 "Summary for: BOSTON VEGETARIAN SOCIETY, INC.". Corp.sec.state.ma.us. William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 1988-10-20. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
- 1 2 3 "990-EZ Short Form Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax for Boston Vegetarian Society" (PDF). Internal Revenue Service, Dept. of the Treasury. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
- ↑ "RESTAURANT REVIEW: A Vegetarian's Guide to the MIT Area - A Rundown of MIT Eateries, Local Grocery Stores, and Restaurants". Tech.mit.edu. 2001-09-26. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
The Boston Vegetarian Society is a prime example of this. Their web site, found at <http://www.bostonveg.org/index.html>, is a great place to find out what vegetarian-related events are going on in Boston (for example, the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival will be held on October 13th this year). The site also hosts a long list of links to other vegetarian/vegan-related web sites.
- ↑ "Boston Vegetarian Society - Mission Statement". VegGuide.Org. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
- ↑ "Boston Vegetarian Society". Bostonveg.org. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
- ↑ "THE ESSENTIAL VEGETARIAN: Cheese: The vegetarian's friend in Europe - The Tech". Tech.mit.edu. 1999-09-10. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
- ↑ "FOOD REVIEW: The Essential Vegetarian - The Tech". Tech.mit.edu. 2000-10-03. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
- ↑ "Boston Vegetarian Food Festival at Reggie Lewis Athletic Center - The Boston Globe". Boston.com. 2010-10-30. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
- ↑ "BOSTON VEGETARIAN FOOD FEST: Don't drink the Kombucha". DigBoston. 2010-10-26. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
- ↑ Weiss, Rachel (2011-10-27). "Vegetarian Food Festival in Roxbury growing in popularity". Articles.boston.com. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
- ↑ "About Dr. Attwood" (c. 1996) notes that (the late) Dr. Charles Attwood had spoken at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival 'recently' - it was 1996 - the first year of BVFF.
- ↑ VRG-NEWS: The Vegetarian Resource Group Newsletter, John L. Cunningham ( Editor), Volume 7, Issue 4, August 2003
- ↑ The Growing World of Veg Festivals. VegNews, Brooke Still, August 17, 2010
- ↑ 1997 BVFF (2nd BVFF) Program of Speakers, hosted on MIT website
- ↑ MIT-hosted archival page for 2000 BVFF says that 1999 BVFF was held at RLTAC nd that the 2000 BVFF is the 4th BVFF
- ↑ 1998 BVFF - 2nd BVFF - List of Sponsors, such a long list that it could not be held in the Johnson Ice Rink at MIT, though it could have been held in Bunker Hill Community College (1997), where the 1998 BVFF - 2nd BVFF - was spread out over four or five of its buildings - on a Saturday
- ↑ HSPH Faculty profile for Dean David Hunter
External links
- Official website
- Boston Vegetarian Food Festival (BVFF)
- Interview with BVS President Evelyn B. Kimber, Vegetarian Journal, May 1, 2006
- Esperanto translation of 2012 Wikipedia article on Boston Vegetarian Society