42 VegNews HOLIDAYS 2019
THE PHILANTHROPIST
Jaden Smith
³For most, turning 21 is a time for
debauchery. Not for Jaden Smith. The
rapper and son of Will and Jada Pinkett
Smith has been active in philanthropy
and activism from a young age, citing
vegan former Vice President Al Gore
as an inspiration for his environmental
and social advocacy. In 2012, he and
his father established JUST Water, a
revolutionary boxed water company
eschewing conventional plastics for
renewable sugarcane and paper. This
year, he and his conscious company
took their efforts to the people of
Flint, MI, who have been without clean
drinking water for more than five years.
There, they debuted a mobile filtration
system that removes lead and other
poisons from contaminated water,
producing 10 gallons in 60 seconds,
and offered it to local residents for
free. And on his 21st birthday, Smith
cemented his status as an A-plus altruist,
launching I Love You Restaurant, a
one-day pop-up food truck that served
free vegan meals to the homeless of
Los Angeles’ Skid Row—the first, he
says, of many trucks to come. It can
sometimes seem hard to make the
world a better place, but people like
Smith are demonstrating that it doesn’t
take much. It just comes down to clean
water, good food, and a lot of love.THE ACTRESS
Natalie Portman
³On an April afternoon in Inglewood,
CA, Oscar-winner Natalie Portman
took the stage at international youth
empowerment organization WE
Charity’s annual educational event to
share her vegan story with 16,000 youth
activists. She spoke of her childhood
experience of connecting with
animals, which inspired her to becomea vegetarian at just nine years old.
After reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s
book Eating Animals and discovering
the environmental impact of factory
farming, Portman eliminated all animal
products from her life, and has been
a vocal proponent of the lifestyle ever
since. As both the producer and the
narrator of the documentary film based
on Foer’s book, Portman is walking the
talk—and taking us along for the ride.
To promote Eating Animals, she ate
her way through the world’s spiciest
vegan wings on the hilarious YouTube
celebrity interview series Hot Ones,
racking up nearly 7 million views. The
Harvard-educated actress has even
started requesting her on-set wardrobe
designers on projects like Vox Lux
to source her entire wardrobe from
animal-free materials. With beauty,
grace, intelligence, and empathy in
spades, Natalie Portman is veganism’s
ace in the hole.NATALIE
PORTMANMILEY
CYRUSJADEN
SMITHJaden^Smith,Natalie^ Portman^ and^Miley^Cyrus:Associated^Press