Black Vegetarian Society of Maryland dba Black Veg Society (BVS) is a 501(c)3 organization whose mission is to educate predominantly Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, on the benefits of holistic living, the plant-based diet, and veganism while building a community centered around healthy, accessible, and sustainable food with a focus on compassionate lifestyle choices.
Since its founding in 2015, BVS has organized, co-organized, and participated in nearly 100 events including veg fests, vegan restaurant weeks, meatless dinners, panel discussions, lectures, and table samplings. BVS is a 24/7 online resource center with access to cooking demos, wellness classes, and referrals to certified health and wellness coaches. The organization engages, endorses, and establishes partnerships in vegan and plant-based campaigns and coalitions.
BVS focuses on the following six pillars when conducting its outreach:
Earth
Eating
Education
Empowerment
Enlightenment
Events
BVS’s reach has extended upward of one million solely from their bi-annual Vegan Restaurant Week in Maryland. Vegan Soulfest, Baltimore’s annual celebration of culture and veganism reached 16,000 attendees in 2018. Digital talk show “Naijha Speaks,” streams on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn with a reach of over 100K views since its April 2020 launch. Naijha has been a contributing anchor for the past four years on Jane Velez-Mitchell’s UnchainedTV, a fully vegan television network with a following of over 2.8 million fans from 100+ countries.