The Vancouver Zoomer Show 2015 - billed as a Lifestyle Expo for the 45+ is on at the Vancouver Convention Centre today and Sunday. I volunteered for a short stint at the Vancouver chapter CARP booth, after which I wandered around the exposition. Had some unexpected encounters with people I had not seen since I retired. So nice to catch up. Among the many exhibits ranging from travel to healthcare there were two booths that I wanted to feature in this post.

One of the first booths that attracted my attention was the Grandmothers to Grandmothers display. The Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign was launched in 2006 by the Stephen Lewis Foundation with the objective of helping grandmothers in Africa as they struggled to raise the millions of children orphaned by AIDS.

There are now more than 240 Grandmothers groups across Canada who raise funds that go to support organizations on the ground who supply short and long term needs from food, housing and bedding, health care, and school fees to bereavement counseling and HIV awareness counseling.

I stopped to admire the handmade bags and purses on display and chatted with Marlene and Hannah from the Greater Van Gogos a Vancouver chapter supporting Grandmothers to Grandmothers. Gogo is apparently the Zulu word for grandmother.

Marlene is the handbag craftsman. I loved her designs and picked out a small shoulder purse to give to my grand-daughter. All the proceeds from the booth go to the Grandmothers Campaign.

I also stopped to sample a SimplyProtein snack bar. These bars are high in protein, low in sugar and I liked the crunch of the bit I sampled. I checked the nutritional content. The bar I tasted has 150 calories but contains 10 g of protein and only 2 g of sugar. Something to take on those flights down to California where the snacks provided by the airline are pretzels or sugary cookies. 

After chatting to one of the people at the booth  I was intrigued enough to visit the web site of this Toronto-based company, where I found that they have a very wide range of products. The bars come in a great variety of flavors. I am certainly interested in trying out more of these bars as well as their other products.

Links:

Greater VanGogos

Simply Protein