Vendy Awards

Street food has certainly changed over the twenty years I've lived here.

It's gone from hot dogs and pretzels to gay ice cream, dumplings, and Indian food (to name only a few).

In the past few years it has been exciting to see it morph into something truly diverse and exciting, with so many clever people with a dream and a truck getting it together, and literally, taking it on the road!

It's nice to see that the Vendy Awards has come into being to help promote and support these intrepid four wheeled foodies by having an annual competition to promote street food.

It's a great site with video interviews of some of the finalists and information on how you can get tickets to the awards ceremony.

The Street Vendors Project, the organization that holds the Vendy Awards, is actually part of UrbanJustice.org both very worthy organizations worth checking out and supporting.

Here's the mandate of the Street Vendors Project:

The Street Vendor Project is a membership-based project with more than 750 active vendor members who are working together to create a vendors' movement for permanent change. We reach out to vendors in the streets and storage garages and teach them about their legal rights and responsibilities. We hold meetings where we plan collective actions for getting our voices heard. We publish reports and file lawsuits to raise public awareness about vendors and the enormous contribution they make to our city. Finally, we help vendors grow their businesses by linking them with small business training and loans.

The Street Vendor Project is part of the Urban Justice Center, a non-profit organization that provides legal representation and advocacy to various marginalized groups of New Yorkers.