Black VegFest: Spread Love 1

LoriKim Alexander is an educator, organizer, activist, conservationist, abolitionist, naturalist and healer. She synergizes all of these into Black liberation work from a Queer, vegan perspective. 

Fred Beasley II- aka Doc G- is a global youth culture architect and lifelong creative with over two
decades of experience working with at risk youth of all ages. He has traveled the world doing interactive workshops and lectures designed to empower the disenfranchised. Doc has been featured in NY Times, Men's Health, CNN, Men's Fitness, and The Smithsonian museum. In addition to working with high profile clients such as Nike, NBA,
Equinox, NFL and Leverage Marketing agency. Producer of the award winning documentary Raise Up The World is Our Gym (2016) that was recently picked up by Red Bull.

As executive creative director for R Baron MultiMedia Group, Fred has worked with several successful emerging hip hop artists in recent years. Drakeo The Ruler, Shoreline Mafia, 1 Take Jay, Wallie The Sensi, Siete Gang Yabbie, Ron Ron The Producer, AZ Chike, plus many more.

Doc is Founder and former Chapter leader of NYCHIPHOPISGREEN a plant based multi media company developed to introduce inner city youth to the benefits of living a healthy balanced lifestyle in flavorful and digestible way.

In 2018 Fred joined forces with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and DOE
Chancellor Richard Carranza to help implement The Meatless Mondays initiative in New York City public schools serving over 1 million students. Mr. Beasley was also part of a coalition of advocates that helped push the historic animal rights bill in New York City. The most progressive animal welfare legislation in the country.

In 2017 & 2018 Doc hosted The Black Veg Fest in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn which garnered over 10
thousand grass roots attendees. He is currently releasing his first children’s book, HERU - The Happy Dragon and presently resides in Nashville, TN with his wife and four children. 

Scott Bernard a certified NASM trainer as evolved into "Scott Burnhard," a super positive fitness personality that loves calisthenics and actively shares his passion and story with the world!  Based in NYC, he a motivational speaker, coach (online & offline), devoted trifecta trainer  & forever a student of LIFE! 

Wendi Cherry  is a  Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach and Resident Coaching Expert (Institute for Integrative Nutrition), producer, and host of The Sanctuary Radio Show and The African Ancestry Experience, Wendi Cherry has been featured locally and internationally in West Africa. She is a contributing writer for the AARP Sisters Newsletter, Medium, and The Institute of Integrative Nutrition.  When she's not hanging out with her teenage daughter or bobbin’ her head to some Golden Era hip hop, you can find her living her passion, educating, empowering, and inspiring Black people to unapologetically transform into their most authentic and healthy selves by tapping into the God and Goddess within. 

Charolyn "Coach Shay" Mosley is a wellness enthusiast, speaker, and social/food justice advocate. She has been on her vegan journey for 9 years and is dedicated to empowering others to find health and healing through lifestyle changes, plant medicine, clean eating and holistic healing practices. She is passionate about the environment and seeks to motivate others for change. Her work includes partnering with health organizations such as Peace Advocacy Network, GirlTrek, WIC (Women, Infants and Children's Program) & WeWalk PHL (City of Philadelphia community fitness program). She currently manages community relations for the City of Philadelphia's bikeshare program and has been recently nominated as a Scholarship Awardee for the 2022 Vegan Women's Summit in Los Angeles, CA for her work as a community advocate and promoter of veganism. 

James A. Thompson, M.D. is a double boarded physician with over 30 years experience in allergy and asthma care. I am certified in nutrition coaching and promote a vegan lifestyle.  

Cleopatra is a Two-Spirit Black and Indigenous healer. They are passionate about organizing community and cultural education. They believe in healing by any means necessary. 

Playwright - Yasmine Lancaster a graduate of SUNY Purchase College is a playwright, poet, writer and award winning filmmaker. She has been published with Literary Review, Free Verse Magazine, Nia Magazine and the Bronx Times Newspaper to name a few. In 2019 she released a chapbook, Substitute Teacher Chronicles that was published by Harlequin Creatures Press; it sold out in a month. In 2020 "WORD(s) These are the tools that I trust " Solo Collaborative Exhibit Queen Museum highlighting her poetry from the groundbreaking magazine Free Verse. The Little Prince her one act play is making its historic debut - at this year Black VegFest. She is excited about the possibilities and appreciates Black VegFest for providing a platform for her work to be seen in the community. She is thankful for the cast, director and her assistant who came together to make this possible.

Director - Brandon Stock is a New York director, designer, production supervisor, technical director, carpenter, and electrician. He received his BA from Loyola University, Chicago and his MFA in Directing from The Actors Studio at Pace University. He has had the privilege to work on multiple productions with many theaters in New York including The Flea Theater, Access Theater and Theater for A New Audience. His most recent directorial credits include The Grass Is Greenest At The Houston Astrodome by Michael Ross Albert and The Old Masters by Sam Marks. I am very excited to be working on The Little Prince by Yasmine Lancaster and cannot thank her enough for this opportunity. I would also like to thank Chris and Maya, who show me the most love and support that one could ask for.

Actor - Shariffa Wilson is a multidisciplinary creative and storyteller who works to give a voice to the voiceless and share stories of diverse Black experiences. Following a brief stint in international development and foreign relations, Shariffa pursued her passion for acting and received an M.F.A. from the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York. Since then, she has written, performed, and directed creative productions on the East Coast and Los Angeles. Shariffa is a proud native of Oakland, Calf., and a graduate of Howard University. Through art, her life’s mission is to connect humanity one story at a time.

Actor - Jeremy Goren is an interdisciplinary theatre artist, primarily in devised works, with a focus on experimental, socially focused performances and hybrid events. Formerly a longtime collaborator with Terra Incognita Theater and the U.S.-based projects of The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, Jeremy works as lead artist in Wistaria Project and a Co-Artistic Director of AnomalousCo, as well as with other artists and organizations. He's currently in development of Saviana Stanescu's Zebra 2.0, Target Margin's Here & Now oral-storytelling project in Sunset Park, and further iterations of AnomalousCo's (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling, a performance event to raise funds and awareness for refugees from Ukraine and around the world. He has a background in journalism and youth development and earned a MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College. www.jeremygoren.com 

Liberation Farm Children's Workshop 

Children learn urban gardening with arts and crafts from Farmer Nadia of Liberation Farm. 

Liberation Farm grows people and plants. It is a Black space. 

Nadia Muyeeb is a Mom, Organizer and a Creative. The Vegan Mom of three loves hiking, camping and boxing. Nadia is a Black VegFest Organizer, who began first organizing speakers/performers and our volunteer team during 2018 and 2019. Nadia takes the lead on Black VegFest's first non-festival project Senior Food Demos, where we offer healthy and tasty options to our community's most vulnerable. Nadia belongs to a massive family of artists. Her artistry collection is a wide portfolio of paintings and handmade jewelry using gemstones, brass and silver wire and other materials. Her artworks are available on social media and Etsy. 

During 2020, you can find Nadia at solidarity and support protests and events for all Black People, laughing and creating or doing boxing mittwork to exercise and increase her focus and mental health. 

Email Nadia at  nadia@blackvegfest.org 

Gigi the Vegan is the founder of Midwest Soul Vegfest in a Kansas City, owner of Gigis Vegan Cafe, Auther of The V Code and founder of Casey health initiative a non profit organization that feeds inner-city kids plant-based nutrition 

Houiea Love (ow-yeah) is a multidisciplinary artist and an indigenous practitioner of Shamanism, IFA and the Akashic Records, specializing in permanently breaking generational curses and healing intergeneration trauma. 

Ramona Cadogan is a masters weightlifter, competing In the US and internationally in Olympic and power lifting. She is a vegan coach to help people who want to transition using it with fitness/personal training and/or for newbies who want to transition into the life style. She is also an educator in the schools and worked up to be a biology teacher as well as an administrator who has her own tutoring business online/in-person with her team of educators for most subjects and test preps preK to college at academicbreakthroughcoaching.com 

Charles "Plant Hero" Believes: "Just like the internet disrupted us, cannabis is gonna change us at a higher level." Cannabis Consultant, promoter of cannabis being the way to financial independence, a proponent of cannabis for cancer treatment.  

Brandon Morton is a regenerative horticulturist, mycologist, consultant, student, veteran and founder of  Earth Eater LLC, a Botanical and mycological genetic preservation farm and Laboratory. 

He also makes  high quality hand made small batch organic inputs for the home gardener. 

Brandon currently operates his farm and laboratory in Staten Island, while he looks for fertile land to transplant Earth Eater LLC. 

Naijha Wright co-owns, The Land of Kush, VeganSoul Bistro in Baltimore, Maryland. She directs the Black Veg Society, co-founded Vegan Soulfest and Maryland Vegan Restaurant Week. She contributes for Jane Unchained News and is a storyteller and TEDx Speaker. Naijha is a brand. 

Erin Wing is the Deputy Director of Investigations for Animal Outlook and a former undercover investigator. Over the course of 2 years, she went on to complete 4 investigations in the dairy, chicken and aquaculture industries, including the first-ever undercover expose of salmon aquaculture in the U.S.  Erin's investigations have helped shed light on the suffering animals endure on farms in the animal agriculture system. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian and The New York Times. 

Eloísa Trinidad (@elogata) is an artist and total liberation activist & organizer, her path towards activism and Veganism started in childhood. She was raised by centennials who lived off the land, taught her to be self-sustainable, and passed down much ancestral knowledge to her. This shaped her views of justice and empathy for all Beings, protection of our sacred Earth, and the belief in the healing power of plants, sharing, and community. Eloísa approaches liberation praxis and Veganism with an anti-colonial framework to raise awareness of how Western colonization has affected and continues to affect the plight of human and beyond-human animals, and how it has changed the food system and our relationship with each other and to the natural world. 

Through her role as Executive Director at @ChilisOnWheels New York.  Eloísa focuses on making Veganism accessible to communities in need. She is currently working on legislation to make plant-based food available to students across the country and works with various coalitions and organizations to develop community-driven strategies to transcend poverty and to make food that grows from the ground accessible to everyone by advocating for policy change on a federal and local level. Within this, she has worked on food justice issues, including submitting recommendations on food policy to amplify effective solutions to food insecurity and to address the inequities in the contributing systems. 

Eloísa is also co-founder and Executive Director at @VeganActivistAlliance, a systems change focused, community-driven, anti-speciesist organization working to end the exploitation of beyond-human persons through a collective and total liberation approach. Previously, she worked at The Economist Feeding the Future Campaign which aims to get consumers thinking more about environmentally sustainable approaches to food production and consumption by educating them on plant-based foods, reduction of plastic use, and reduction of food waste. 

She is the recipient of NYC Food Policy Center 2021 40 under 40 Rising stars in Food Policy, and VWS Women Building the Future 2021 honoree in Accessibility and Equity.