Sanctuary Speaker Series:

JoVonna & Eugene Cooke of “Grow Where You Are”

THURSDAY, JUNE 17

“We're all in need of Sanctuary...and it's my firm belief that in us providing sanctuary for human animals, it paves the way for all life to have Sanctuary.” - JoVonna

Join us for our latest Sanctuary Speaker Series event, where we got the chance to speak with Black growers JoVonna Johnson Cooke and Eugene Cooke of Grow Where You Are and Awali Inc. We discuss their journey to veganism, and the significance of Juneteenth, among a number of other topics.

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June 19th, also known as Juneteenth, is this weekend. Juneteenth is celebrated throughout the U.S. in commemoration of June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce that the Emancipation Proclamation to abolish slavery had been issued more than two and a half years earlier.

In the words of JoVonna, Juneteenth is “more than a celebration, it’s a reminder” of the ongoing struggle for racial equity and justice in the United States and how much further we still have to go.

Eugene and JoVonna speak powerfully to the ongoing harm and violence of this legacy of injustice and to how a more just and compassionate food system and world are not possible without confronting systemic racism and the inequities experienced by Black growers and communities.