Community Spotlight
Animal Hero Kids' Susan Hargraves and Green Bar Kitchen's Charles Grippo on Building Community Together | Ep 007 | SoFlo Vegans Podcast
In a format switch-up, Sean brings together two South Florida community pillars at once: Susan Hargraves, founder of Animal Hero Kids and an animal-rights educator since the early 1980s, and returning guest Charles Grippo of Green Bar Kitchen, to talk about how nonprofits and vegan businesses support each other locally.
Topics Covered
- Animal Hero Kids' all-volunteer model, reaching roughly 30,000 students a year (from elementary schools through universities) at no charge
- Hargraves' activist history: investigating stockyards and slaughterhouses in early-1980s Toronto, and helping close down Fort Lauderdale's Ocean World (now the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale)
- How local businesses like Green Bar Kitchen support nonprofits directly -- donating food for events rather than cash a small charity may not have room to spend
- Green Bar Kitchen's newest menu additions: tomato-based poke bowls, vegan crab cakes, a ceviche in development, and a cashew-based vegan cheese and rice-milk gelato
- Why Green Bar Kitchen describes itself as "plant-based" rather than "vegan" to lower the barrier for skeptical first-time customers
- The Great Vegan Cookie Challenge win for Green Bar Kitchen's chocolate chip macadamia marshmallow cookie
- Animal Hero Kids' goal of placing its Voices for the Voiceless book in every school library
About the Guest
Susan Hargraves is the founder of Animal Hero Kids, an all-volunteer nonprofit that has educated students on animal rights and factory farming since the early 1980s. Charles Grippo is the owner and chef of Green Bar Kitchen in Fort Lauderdale.