Chas Chiodo and three decades of vegetarian activism.

GAINESVILLE, THE HOME OF THE UNIVERSITY OF Florida, may be best known for parties, football games, and tailgating. If you look beyond the cattle ranches and the barbeques, however, you may be surprised to find at least one grill that is not searing beef but instead roasting vegetables.

Vegan chef and activist Chas Chiodo has devoted the past 30 years to the vegetarian diet. Chas was moved when he read Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation in 1975 and thus began what would become a lifetime of animal activism, eliminating all animal products from his diet and traveling to vegetarian and animal rights conferences across the country.

When Chas began his work in the late 1970s, he struggled to find a real animal rights community, and he longed to feel more connected with this small but growing population. In 1984, he left Florida for Washington, D.C., a city he called "the hub of activism in America for animal rights." While in Washington, Chas worked for the then-young People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) before forming his own group, Vegetarian Events, with the help of other likeminded activists in 1987. The group, a self-proclaimed "educational and activist organization to promote veganism, environmentalism, and animal liberation," was responsible for hosting the first VegFest later that same year. The lively event, which featured animal rights and vegetarian speakers, music, food sampling, and vegan concession stations on the Washington, D.C., mall, successfully engaged the community and brought vegan cuisine to the people of the nation's capital.

Two years after forming Vegetarian Events, Chas decided to try yet another approach to his outreach. He converted an old school bus into a traveling activist mobile, complete with a screening room, a kitchen, and a bed. He traveled the East Coast, teaching and giving demonstrations, until his mobile classroom broke down. Chas got on the road again later with a van before returning to Gainesville, where he now focuses his work.

Today, Chas Chiodo works with Animal Activists of Alachua, the animal rights group at the University of Florida, and does concessions, catering, and workshops in small towns across the Sunshine State. Chas' workshops typically include a video on vegan nutrition, tofu cooking demonstrations, and vegan food samples, including tofu-based pudding, baked casseroles, and the popular 'Tofu Italiano.' Chas says his biggest obstacle is that "many people who have never given veganism a chance are worried about the taste, worried that the food will be bland." Simply convincing people to try delicious vegetarian food can be quite an endeavor.

Fortunately, Chas is making a large impact on his small community. "These people in the rural areas are just dying (pun intended) for this information. Even if you have a small workshop in these little towns, the word spreads quickly since everyone talks and is close to each other," Chas says.

Almost every year since 2000, Vegetarian Events has hosted the Compassion for Animals Action Symposium in Gainesville. Chas coordinates this annual event, which is a forum for lectures on animal rights and activism. Says the man who remembers all too well searching for a community with similar sensibilities, "I try to make it a networking project. It's a great place for like-minded people to get together and hang out."

Chas Chiodo's work is still far from over. He is currently trying to establish a vegetarian radio program and hopes to one day own a vegan cafe. "I plan to do this for the rest of my life, doing some form of action for animals and promoting vegetarianism," he says.

What advice does this vegan chef and event organizer have for future activists? "No matter how down you feel, how much in the dumps you get that you're not accomplishing anything, keep at it as long as you can.... It does get you down, but what choice do we have once we have this information?"

Katherine Raffelt wrote this article during a college internship with The Vegetarian Resource Group.