10 Questions: Everyday Vegan Change-Maker with Catherine Vade Bon Coeur

One of the great blessings of social media — and there are a few, believe it or not — is becoming acquainted with people we might now have met otherwise. I am happy to say that Sacramento-based Catherine Vade Bon Coeur is a friend, not just an acquaintance, though we’ve never met in person. I am inspired by her activism, her passion for creating change, her willingness to take people under her wing to help them in their vegan evolution and, most of all, her compassion. Catherine is the embodiment of an Everyday Vegan Change-Maker and I am so happy to feature her today.

1. To start, we’d love to know how long you’ve been vegan.

I have been vegan since the end of 2007, but I’m not sure when, so I chose January 1 of 2008 as my date.

2. We’d love to hear your “vegan evolution” story. How did you start out?

I have always known in my soul that eating animals was wrong. I hated any meat that had any red in it. I wouldn’t eat it.

When I was 6, we lived in Cheyenne and people had chickens and other fowl and animals in their yards. I was across the street at a neighbors’, and the father there chopped off the head of a chicken while I was watching. (Which was pretty traumatizing for the 6-year-old me, but that’s what people there…