Second Annual Humane World Expo Unites All Walks of Life

Lytton Plaza was alive with artists in action, animal advocates, raw food chefs, and the occasional bee keeper Saturday during the second annual Humane World Expo sponsored by the Palo Alto Humane Society. 

"The purpose behind the event is to help bring together issues and solutions for seemingly disparate topics," said Erin Scott, PAHS' Director of Organizational Development. "A lot of times animal groups tend to focus only on animal issues, planet and eco-green groups only focus on those. And when it comes down to it, all the issues are connected and all the solutions are connected."

Therefore, bringing the groups together allows them to network with each other, creating a unified front and educating the public in the process, said Scott. 

Various advocates, artists, benevolent businesses, food vendors, and even earth friendly media outlets operated from colorful booths during the Oct. 2 event, the date chosen for its close proximity to Oct. 4, World Animal Day. 

Adding to the Earth-conscious aesthetic of the expo were a number of artists including Marconi Calindas, whose work, he said,  "foster a deep respect for the environment".   

Insect enthusiast Foster Beigler was inspired to create her colorful collage monotype collection, "Discoveryscapes After Insecta," after she acquired a set of bug related books her grandson had lost interest in. 

"I love bugs," Beigler said in a matter-of-fact manner. 

Among the awareness groups present at Humane World Expo were Save the Gray Whales and Stanford Vegetarian Students for Conscious Living, working to organize other student groups interested in vegetarianism. 

Alternative food movements were also on the day's menu in the form of Thriving Edibles, a vegetable friendly booth run by raw food enthusiast Chef Patti Searle.

Some vendors combined the animal kingdom, art, and edibles such as the hard-to-miss Wayne Pitts, on hand to sell honey and beeswax based soaps candles and Buddha shaped candles. Hundreds of yellow and black buzzing friends were encased in a wood and glass box sitting atop Pitts' table. 

"I'm an apiarist - another word for beekeeper," explained the vendor about his passion-turned-business called Uvas Gold Apiary, which not only makes bee-born products but also involves aiding in the pollination process of the black and yellow insects.

It is this kind of merging of action and awareness that encouraged PAHS to create the Humane World Expo. The 100-year-old non-profit organization is a non-shelter humane society that works "to keep animals out of the shelter through humane programs in intervention, advocacy, and education," said Executive Director Carole Hyde.