Vegans often find themselves out of the loop come barbecue season, when carnivores are too busy filling their faces with charred flesh to pay any mind to the grazers and their sad, soggy plates of macaroni salad. That’s just not right, says the folks on The Vegan Bus — that’s why they’re making a trip from Northampton, Massachusetts to Clark Park this Fourth of July.

The Vegan Bus is a two-year-old program founded by Derek Goodwin and a rotating collective of activists, performers and speakers, all of whom use art and entertainment to expose a compassionate vegan lifestyle to a national audience. They’re managing all this while puttering around the country in a school bus powered by waste vegetable oil.

All money that the group raises at its events is used to expand the org, and though they don’t officially have non-profit status just yet, they’re heading in that direction. “We’re actually in the process of becoming a valid organization right now,” says Goodwin, “and Philly will host our first big event in helping to get us to that non-profit status.”

At the day-long event, the crew will be hanging at West Philly’s Clark Park — we’re invited to bring a picnic blanket, delicious vegetarian grub and a hula hoop or two. The Bus will be handing out samples of burgers, dogs and other fare courtesy of vegetarian company LightLife. The Bus has teamed up with Public Eye Philly and its Kids Club in putting on this event, so much of the stuff they’re planning will be family-friendly — performance activities, art projects, etc.

After the BBQ, the Bus will be heading to Chinatown’s New Harmony Vegetarian Restaurant to party with dim sum and drinks alongside Vegan Drinks Philly, a social networking organization dedicated to promoting veganism. Twenty bucks will get you in to the restaurant for dinner, and you can BYO whatever you’d like. (RSVP required; flyer after the jump.) Do the Bus peeps have any special plans for this evening portion of their Independence Day escapade? “We’ll have the bus on display for anyone interested in taking a look inside, but we’re mostly excited to just chill out with you Philly people,” says Goodwin.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Food Events, Food and Holidays, Vegan/Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.