The Vegan Bus

Last year The Vegan Bus was all set to go to the Farm Sanctuary Hoe Down when our brake line broke, spilling brake fluid and making us feel sad. This year the bus has brand new brakes and brake lines, and are planning to make a spectacular stop at this year’s Hoe Down! What’s a Hoe Down? Farm Sanctuary puts it this way…

Join Farm Sanctuary for a memorable weekend at our New York Shelter during our annual Country Hoe Down! This popular event features presentations by well-known speakers in the movement providing current information on animal protection and vegan issues.

In addition to educational and inspiring lectures and presentations, guests will enjoy camping at the sanctuary with other animal-friendly folks, catered vegan meals, yoga classes, hayrides, a Saturday night barn dance, a bonfire, and (of course) guided tours of our shelter that is home to hundreds of rescued farm animals.

Registration for this event is $100 per person. Along with access to all lectures, tours and entertainment options, registration includes all meals (beginning with breakfast on Saturday and ending with lunch on Sunday).

This one-of-a-kind event is an outstanding opportunity to gain valuable knowledge, connect with like-minded people, and become a member of the Farm Sanctuary family. We hope to see you there!

We are offering a limited amount of rides with us for a donation of $40. We will be leaving from Northampton Massachusetts Friday in the early afternoon and returning Sunday evening. The ride will take about 7 hours each way. We will provide some snacks for the ride. We are willing to consider picking up people on the route if it does not cause us a significant delay (see map below for route). If you have any questions please contact us!

You need to register for the event through Farm Sanctuary, it is not included in the cost of riding on the bus. Registration deadline is July 24th! This is a camping event so be sure to read Farm Sanctuary’s Hoe down camping web page.

Round Trip $40

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The Vegan Bus will be heading to Philadelphia this Fourth of July for our first road trip of the summer. We are teaming up with two different Philadelphia groups, Public Eye: Artists for Animals and Vegan Drinks Philly, to put on two very different events. During the day we will be in Clark Park with Public Eye’s Kid’s Club to have a vegan barbeque along with kids activities that teach compassion. The second event will be for adults, as we meet up with Vegan Drinks at the New Harmony Vegan Restaurant

Kids Club Vegan Barbeque July 4th from 11:00am-3:00pm

Join the Vegan Bus and Public Eye: Artists for Animals for a down-home vegan BBQ with hula hoops, lawn games, musical instruments, and art projects. The Bus will park at Clark Park, a lovely setting in University City with trees and a playground. Please bring a vegan/vegetarian picnic lunch, blanket/lawn chairs, and drinks for your family. We will provide additional items (veggie dogs, burgers, etc.) for the BBQ! Friendly dogs are welcome at Clark Park. Public Eye requests an RSVP with the number and ages of your children.

Thanks to Lightlife for donating 96 vegan burgers to us for the event! Coincidentally, 96 is the number of animals one person can save each year by going vegan… Lightlife’s headquarters are in Turners Falls Massachusetts, only about 1/2 hour from the home of the Vegan Bus!
View Larger Map	Clark Park‎ Chester Ave Philadelphia, PA 19104

Vegan Drinks 4th of July Extravaganzaa from 6:00pm-11:00pm

The Vegan Bus will be meeting up with Vegan Drinks Philly at the New Harmony Vegetarian Restaurant for a vegan dim sum feast along with BYOB drinks. The event costs $20 and a portion of the proceeds will go to The Vegan Bus and Public Eye: Artists for Animals. The restaurant is a short walk from great spots to view fireworks, and the bus will be parked nearby for the bus-curious. For more details check out the Vegan Drinks Blog or join Vegan Drinks on Facebook. Please RSVP to Ed Coffin if you plan to attend (856.803.3816 or ed(at)vegandrinksphilly.com).

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On Sunday Sept 28, 2008 the Vegan Bus took our local Afrobeat band Shokazoba to NYC for the 2008 Farm Sanctuary “Walk For Farm Animals”. Although the band only got to play one song due to rain, fun was had by all, as you can see from these photos…

photos by Derek Goodwin

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On Sunday September 28th The Vegan Bus will be transporting members of the local Afrobeat band Shokazoba to New York City to perform at Farm Sanctuary’s Annual Walk for Farm Animals.

Other entertainment and speakers that day will include Princess Superstar, vegan iron man Brendan Brazier, Senator Liz Kreuger, Mercy for Animals Director of Campaigns Freeman Wicklund, Farm Sanctuary Executive Director Jeff Lydon, and indie songstress Bess Rogers.

This is a fantastic way to raise awareness about institutional animal abuse while raising funds for Farm Sanctuary’s vital rescue, advocacy, and education efforts. Email nyc@walkforfarmanimals.org with any questions. Thank you for taking compassionate action!

Farm Sanctuary is the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization. Since incorporating in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has worked to expose and stop cruel practices of the “food animal” industry through research and investigations, legal and institutional reforms, public awareness projects, youth education, and direct rescue and refuge efforts. Farm Sanctuary shelters in Watkins Glen, New York, and Orland, Calif., provide lifelong care for hundreds of rescued animals, who have become ambassadors for farm animals everywhere by educating visitors about the realities of factory farming. The Walk for Farm Animals helps fund and raise awareness about these vital, education and advocacy efforts.

Walks occur throughout the country every fall – on or around October 2 – in honor of World Farm Animals Day.

Shokazoba and friends will be taking up most of the space in our bus, but there might be a little room for a couple more people. Please contact us through the contact form on this website if you are interested.

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The Vegan Bus is happy to announce our first big event this year. We will be taking the bus from Northampton, MA to Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY for their annual Hoe Down event, which they describe as

a rootin’ tootin’ weekend of animal-friendly activities at our farm in Watkins Glen, New York. This annual event draws activists from all across the U.S. and Canada for presentations and workshops, visit time with friendly farm animals, delicious veggie food, and, of course, plenty of lively entertainment.

Country Hoe Down guests can also camp on the farm with other animal-friendly folks, enjoy catered vegan meals, hop on hayrides, hang out around a warm bonfire, and meet and greet our shelter residents. And, as if that wasn’t enough, we will also be offering early bird yoga classes on Saturday and Sunday, and chances to join author George Eisman on his ever-popular Wild Edibles Hike.

As always, Saturday night will be devoted to celebration, as we invite guests to throw on their dancing shoes and get down at our festive barn dance. For those attendees more comfortable off the dance floor, we will also provide a toasty bonfire under the stars to which guests are encouraged to bring their musical instruments!

DETAILS:
Departure Time: Friday, August 1st at 11AM.
Return Time: Sunday August 3rd by 9PM

Itinerary: We will leave on Friday morning at 11am from Northampton, MA. We estimate the ride to take between 7-8 hours (It is under six hours by car but the bus can’t go quite as fast). We will bring a vegan picnic lunch to serve everyone mid-way along the trip. We encourage you to also bring your own snacks! We hope to arrive in time to set up tents while it is still light.

Friday Night there is a bonfire. Feel free to bring lawn chairs, musical instruments and vegan marshmallows! For the Itinerary on Saturday thru Sunday please see Farm Sanctuary’s Hoe Down Schedule of Events. We plan to leave Sunday by 1PM (after the provided Vegan Lunch) unless everyone decides they want to stay longer based upon our actual travel time on the way there. We hope to be back in Northampton no later than 9PM.

Tickets: Farm Sanctuary charges $85 registration fee for the event, which is included in our $120 round trip ticket. You will need to bring camping gear and snack food plus clothing for the weekend. There are no showers available at the farm but we can provide a trip into town to go swimming or to a shower facility on Saturday. There are bathrooms and running water at the farm.

Bus is full, event is sold out!

Once we have people registered we will decide on where to depart from in Northampton. We are willing to pick people up from their homes if they are within a reasonable distance from downtown Northampton. We will be traveling on the MA Pike from Springfield to the NY State Thruway past Albany and Syracuse. We can possibly pick up passengers along the way as long as we don’t have to go more than 5 miles off of our route.

If you have any other questions please feel free to Contact Us.

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Our web site has been a bit quiet lately, and I apologize. The bus was taken off the road for the winter in order to save money on insurance. We found out on a trip to the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in November of 2007 that the heating system was not adequate, and doing any kind of remodeling on the bus in the midst of a harsh New England winter did not seem like much fun.

Now that the trees are budding, the flowers are blooming, and the grease is becoming more viscous, we are looking forward to getting the bus back on the road!

July 24, 2008: We regret that we will not be taking the Vegan Bus to Burning Man this year due to finances and circumstance. We look forward to doing it up right in 2009…

Burning Man 2008!
The BIG news is that we have decided to go to Burning Man again this year! Last year we got the bus less than a month before we drove 3000 miles to Nevada and it made for some stress and frantic work schedules. This year we have more time to plan and more experience to contribute, so it should be a smooth ride… he he. The exact dates are still to be determined, but it will be the last part of August through the 1st week of September.

We are looking for some new riders this time around, to mix things up a bit and keep it fresh. Anyone who is somewhere between Northampton, MA and the Black Rock desert in Nevada is welcome to apply, just contact us through this site! We will provide a earth-friendly ride, vegan food and optional camping. We are willing to veer a bit off route to pick people up. Check out the route we took last year for an idea of the route this year.

August 1-3: Farm Sanctuary Hoe Down
We have a weekend trip to Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY planned for people who want to take a shorter trip and see one of the most peaceful and inspiring places on the planet. Here is the blurb from Farm Sanctuary’s site about that:

Join like-minded animal advocates for an energizing and educational weekend conference at our New York Shelter. Offering up-to-date information on critical farm animal issues, groundbreaking campaigns, and effective advocacy strategies, the Hoe Down is an inspirational event for activists of all experience levels. Highlights include an exciting lineup of animal protection speakers, shelter time with the animals, delightful vegan food, and an evening barn dance.

We will provide travel and the option of sleeping on the bus, or you can bring a tent. Prices TBA.

We will also be doing some day trips to the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in Woodstock, NY.

If you are interested in hearing more about upcoming events, or participating in the Vegan Bus project in any way, please sign up for our email list here:
http://groups.google.com/group/veganbustamove

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