Under the auspices of WFI, the Mexican Association of Vegan Entrepreneurs is joining with California’s White Pony Express to create a model for attacking food insecurity on a global scale

On July 7, 2022, a new global partnership will make the first of many shared moves against food insecurity.

Women Forward International, the global non-profit that is building creative partnerships to bring about unity, collaboration and service to humanity, will bring their Mexican partners, the Association of Vegan Entrepreneurs of Mexico (EVM), for a site visit and food distribution with their California partner, White Pony Express (WPE), a leading food rescue and recovery non-profit, located in Contra Costa County. This follows on WPE’s site visit sponsored by WFI to EVM’s headquarters in Monterrey, Mexico last month.

The food distribution will be held in conjunction with RR Ministries, a community bilingual church in Antioch. The event will take place on Thursday, July 7 at (time) in the church’s parking lot at 512 W. 2nd Street. Sweetgreen, the health-focused casual food restaurant chain and WPE partner, is providing 150 vegan salads for the volunteers. World Centric, leader in compostable materials and sustainability, will be providing earth friendly containers for the food distribution.

The event represents WFI’s expansion of a volunteer-powered food delivery service initiative in Mexico. The non-profit organization is bringing together White Pony Express and the Association of Vegan Entrepreneurs of Mexico in order to provide technical assistance and support for EVM’s Mesa Redonda Round Table initiative, aimed at reducing hunger in America’s neighbor.

Throughout EVM’s visit, WPE will help EVM deepen its work underway, institute safety policies and practices, raise awareness, and ultimately expand their services. WPE will provide lessons learned and will help develop manuals and approaches that will enable Mesa Redonda to incorporate more restaurants and other types of businesses into their network as well as serve additional organizations supporting women who have suffered from gender-based violence (GBV).

According to Kent Davis-Packard, founder and president of Women Forward International, “The collaboration of White Pony Express with its Mexican counterpart demonstrates the power of cross-border partnership to alleviate food insecurity and contribute to social equality. It also provides an example of a new paradigm of philanthropy that is based on love and human unity.”

Eve Birge, Executive Director of White Pony Express, added, “We look forward to deepening the impact of the Mesa Redonda initiative through sharing best practices and approaches to building trust and collaboration. In short, we will help them create a model that will be scalable and is based on our belief in the ‘all of us taking care of all of us’ vision.”

Rocio Cavazos, founder and president of EVM, envisions a deeper purpose for her organization’s visit, “WFI and WPE are helping us achieve a shared goal of uplifting lives, protecting the environment, and putting an end to hunger and marginalization. This model can be applicable to the entire world.”

ABOUT WOMEN FORWARD INTERNATIONAL (WFI)

WFI(www.womenforwardinternational.org) builds creative partnerships that bridge mind and heart to bring about unity, collaboration and service to humanity. WFI’s partnerships encompass a range of private sector, academic and non-profit clients to identify research critical to human progress, and then pairs teams of graduate international studies students with these organizations to complete that research and implement innovative solutions. These projects include empowering women artisans in conflict zones, enabling sustainable farming with gender equity and taking steps toward the elimination of hunger along with inclusive access to education through digital and other unique platforms. WFI uses the reflective power of Art to reveal and investigate the underlying cultural issues at stake in a given international relations issue. It thus provides the next generation of global leaders with a more holistic approach to human relationships.

ABOUT VEGAN ENTREPRENEURS OF MEXICO (EVM)

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, the Association of Vegan Entrepreneurs of Mexico (en.aevm.mx) is an NGO and entrepreneurial community that strives to empower consumers to adopt conscious and healthy lifestyles. Members make plant-based options accessible to the general public, replacing the use of animals to achieve balance with the Earth, the health of our bodies and an ethical interaction with other living beings with which we share the planet.

ABOUT WHITE PONY EXPRESS (WPE)

Based in the California Bay Area, White Pony Express (WPE) (www.whiteponyexpress.org) is a volunteer-powered organization with a mission to eliminate hunger and poverty by delivering the abundance all around us to those in need—with love. They serve 120,000 people each year by partnering with more than 80 non-profit agencies who have strong ties to the community. The rescue program at WPE has expanded this model by subjecting all collected food to a meticulous culling process and promising that it is obtained, sorted, and redistributed within a twenty-four-hour time period—seven days a week.

ABOUT RR MINISTRIES (MINISTERIOS REY DE REYES): RR Ministries is a bilingual ministry, located in Antioch, California. We believe God has called us to teach His word as an instrument of restoration and healing for the families in our community. We, as a church are committed to create an environment that builds healthy individuals and strong families. The church’s Promise Keeper Program conducts regularly conducts food and supplies distribution on the second and fourth Saturday of each month. For information, call (925) 588-4818.