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Fort Myers | Presenters

Featuring expert doctors, researchers, and activists to discuss timely topics such as health, diet, animal welfare, and the environment.

10am - Mike and Denise Young | aPlantBasedDiet.org NON-PROFIT UPDATE + LONGEVITY HABITS & INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES

Mike Young is the Founder of aPlantBasedDiet.org 501(c)(3) Non-Profit, TriangleGrapeVine.org and FloridaGrapeVine.org. aPlantBasedDiet.org has a website full of food and recipe resources, a YouTube Channel, local community groups, and live in person outdoor festival events up and down the US East Coast. He’s the type of person that’s continually in search of improvement and doing the best he can do with everything. Mike has always been a forward thinker, and this has propelled him into leading a whole foods plant based lifestyle. He believes there’s nothing more important to do today than spread the good news of this lifestyle since everyone and everything benefits! Mike can be found perpetually on social media. Mike is also a Lifestyle Nutritionist @ ForeverYoungNutritionCoaching.com with a passion for human health. Author of the vBook “Live to 150” available FREE here: http://LiveTo150.org

Denise began her non-profit leadership work as the President of her COA. She leads projects and analyses financial data as a Senior Systems Analyst at Freddie MAC. Denise began her Plant-based journey after Mike encouraged her to read The China Study in 2017. Denise lost her beloved Aunt and Grandmother to diabetes and watched several family members struggle with breast cancer. She’s committed to educating people about a healthy lifestyle that doesn’t exploit animals and is better for the environment. Since switching to a Whole Foods Plant Based diet, Denise has lost 20 pounds, has resumed running and recently won first place in her age group in a competitive 5K!

Providing a yearly update for the organization plus longevity tips from the newly completed free book LIVE to 150!

10:30am - Cyd Notter | THE ‘PLAN A’ DIET

Remote Live Video Chat

Cyd Notter is a graduate of the Center for Nutrition Studies, a certified instructor for The Starch Solution and other dietary courses, a past newspaper columnist, and the founder/author of The “Plan A” Diet. She offers a variety of health and cooking classes, provides nutritional coaching on both individual and corporate levels, speaks to local groups, and has worked with school district employees and a hospital’s fitness center. Her book, titled The “Plan A” Diet, released in October, 2019.

Come and learn 3 steps you can begin implementing today to get started toward your health and weight goals. First, how to shed 1-3 pounds a week without counting calories or eating tiny portions. Second, why ditching this one highly-processed food allows you to accelerate your weight loss AND improve your health. And third, how you can reduce or eliminate medications with a single food component that most people lack.

11am - Arwen Carlin | SOLAR TO SAVE MONEY + SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT

Save Money and Save The Environment

 Arwen Carlin was raised vegetarian and has been vegan for 9 years. She was a kindergarten teacher for 12 years before becoming a solar energy consultant. Now she loves helping people take their power back from the utility companies and helping to create a cleaner future for the next generations. 
 

11:15am - Dr. Will Tuttle | THE WORLD PEACE DIET

Remote Live Video Chat

Dr. Will Tuttle, visionary author, educator, and inspirational speaker, is author of the acclaimed Amazon #1 best-seller The World Peace Diet, published in 16 languages. Since 1985, Dr. Tuttle has delivered an unparalleled 4,000+ live audience presentations encouraging compassion and vegan living, in over 50 countries worldwide and in all 50 U.S. states.

Noon - Lisa Wong | ADVOCATE FOR THE INNER DOCTOR + EAR READINGS

Advocate for the Inner Doctor

A vegan acupuncturist and optimal health coach, Lisa is the founder of the Center for Healing By Design, a 501c3 non-profit with the mission to empower vegans, vegetarians, and compassionate people worldwide to get in touch with their Inner Doctor and live happy, healthy, and compassionate lives in harmony with Mother Earth and all living beings. As the first vegan acupuncturist ever to climbed Kilimanjaro, the tallest walkable mountain in the world, Lisa launched the global Climb Every Mountain Self-Care Movement with the aim to empower people from all walks of life to discover their inner healing tools, so they can “climb the mountains” in their lives and create the optimal health they desire and deserve, which is their birth right. Lisa teaches self-care education classes to people worldwide, from 4-year-old orphans to 80-year-old world record holders. Besides vegan and vegetarian change leaders, Lisa’s clients also include health enthusiasts, healthcare professionals, professional athletes and young growing families.

12:45pm - Austin Aries | VEGAN PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER

TOPIC | Beyond Impossible! Taking a deeper look behind the processed plant-food agenda. Surely it’s better for the animals, but is it better for you?

Austin Aries is a five- time World Champion professional wrestler who has performed around the world for almost every major professional wrestling company, including Ring of Honor Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, and World Wrestling Entertainment. But if you were to ask him what his favorite accomplishment is over the course of his decorated twenty-two year career, he would tell you it’s the fact he’s done all of these amazing things as a plant based athlete. In addition to his pro wrestling resume, Austin is also an accomplished author, health coach and motivational speaker. He often says that as an entertainer his job is to help people forget about their problems, but as a human being his job is to help people fix them.

2pm - Ellen Jaffe Jones | Beat Inflation (+ More) on a Vegan Diet

Remote Live Video Chat

With inflation skyrocketing, phone is ringing off hook from event planners and media on how to eat on a budget, vegan or not.

Ellen Jaffe Jones is a nationally ranked sprinter, 6-time vegan book author and former Emmy winning TV investigative reporter from Miami. Her mom, aunt, and both sisters had breast cancer and her family was part of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene studies. She is the only adult female without it. She has placed in 260 5K or longer races for her age group and was the only woman in the 70 to 74-year-old age group at the National Senior Games to compete in all 7 track events and placed in 3 of them. She is a licensed cooking instructor for Physicians Committee for Reponsible Medicine.

2:30pm - Shannon Blair and VeganEvan | VEGAN ACTIVISM + AAM

Shannon’s journey toward animal liberation really got going Thanksgiving Day, 1996, when she was just 9 years old. After she saw footage showing what happens to animals in order for them to end up on our plates, she never ate another animal again and immediately became an activist, stickering packages and holding demos outside of supermarkets. After about 2 decades of eating a vegetarian diet, Shannon was made aware of the atrocities occurring in the dairy industry — she had never heard this information before. She also watched Cowspiracy on Netflix and then made the decision to transition to a Vegan Lifestyle overnight. Shortly after, she found out how horrendous the egg industry is, another one she had been supporting during all that time as a vegetarian. Shannon now understood why those “crazy vegans” weren’t eating cheese or eggs — they weren’t so crazy after all. She got right back into activism — this time with more knowledge, more reasons, and an incredible amount of inspiration from her son, VeganEvan (who decided to go vegan the same day, even though she tried talking him out of it)! Shannon is fighting for the animals and for Evan’s future. She quit her job in 2017 to advocate, educate, and activate full-time. Shannon and Evan travel all over doing outreach & actions for the animals. They are in the process of starting up a new non-profit organization, the Animal Liberation Action Squad. Shannon is a Certified Vegan Lifestyle Coach & Educator.

VeganEvan is a passionate and talented young animal advocate committed to creating a healthy, compassionate, and regenerative world. He is President & Spokesperson for Animal Hero Kids and also a spokesperson for the Solutionary Species movement. VeganEvan has spoken in front of large audiences at several major events throughout the country including the What the Health-Cowspiracy Conference, Central Florida Earth Day, the Animal Liberation Conference, Tampa Bay VegFest, the National Animal Rights Conference, Asheville Vegan Fest, VegFest Oahu, and many more!!  He has been awarded the Russell Simmons Creative Animal Hero Kids Award, and in 2016, he earned PETA’s Cutest Vegan Kid award.  More recently he was awarded the Shining World Leadership Award for Compassion from the Supreme Master Ching Hai Association. VeganEvan is a voice for the animals everywhere he goes! He enjoys leafleting, protesting, doing marches, Open Rescue, disruptions, and making videos and rap songs! Evan also participates in Anonymous for the Voiceless Cubes of Truth and Vigils with the Save Movement wherever he travels. Most of all, he loves visiting all of his rescued friends at the sanctuaries where they are happy, safe and free from harm.

Laurelle

FREE Zumba Class

Almost immediately after taking her first class in 2006, Laurelle became a Zumba instructor. She grew up with dance and music in her home, and wanted to pursue dance but was never able to. Zumba gave her a second chance, and she couldn’t wait to share that passion with others.
 
Laurelle began teaching in a few different areas of NJ, and took a short break before moving to Fort Myers in 2017. She had recently lost her grandmother to breast cancer, and started taking fitness and nutrition serious. She changed her diet, and jumped right back into teaching Zumba. She branched out into other areas of excercise, but Zumba remains her true fitness love. 
 
Laurelle feels that dance allows you to process through different feelings and express them in a healthy way. Her goal in class is to provide a place for you to connect with this, to thank your body with movements and rhythms from all over the world, burn some calories, and have a blast doing it!