Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Rusia Castro.
Hi Victoria Rusia, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’m Rusia (also known as Victoria) and I’m the face behind Dallas Vegan Insider. I curate local vegan events, pop-ups, vendors/businesses, and news for the greater Dallas area through social media and my newsletter, and coordinate social meetups to support vegan businesses.
I’ve been vegan for 13 years and being a huge foodie meant having to know where to go for the good stuff. I even became a regular to a few vegan vendors who’d end up knowing me by name. It felt good to be part of a community and I wanted to share that feeling. Over the years, I became involved in several vegan meetup groups, like DFW Veggie Lovers, The Veggie Outers, DFW Vegan Ladies, and Get Local Vegan.
I would often come across other vegans, old and new, not knowing about these businesses, which actually got me to the point of mild frustration. “You don’t know about so and so?! How is that possible!” It became a personal mission of mine to let as many people know about these places so they could enjoy them just as much as I have.
Actually, several years ago, I had a moniker of “Map Girl” in the North Texas Vegans group, a Facebook group where I’m now an admin. I shared a map I created on Google’s My Maps with all the vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants, categorized by cuisine, along with notes about how to veganize menu items. It was quite the endeavor–I did it during work hours–but many group members really appreciated it. Sadly, that fell to the wayside after becoming too unwieldy to upkeep. But the concept of DVI is an extension of the map: a way to let people know about these places. Right now, all this knowledge is in spreadsheet that I’m tempted to share to the public just so it’s out there, even if it’s not the prettiest or the most organized.
Another big reason I wanted to create DVI was, funnily enough, because I got tired of individually sharing vegan events and pop-ups to my list of friends who were on different platforms (IG, FB, text message) and asking if they’d be interest in going. DVI is my way of having an open invite to both my current friends and future friends to support local vegan businesses while having a fun time socializing. I’ve had a few meetups now under the DVI flag–mostly foodie events to show support of vegan vendors, but also ethics-based events like a recent trip to Waco to volunteer at Cloven Heart Farm Sanctuary.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It started as a learning curve, but quickly became a mental toll that I had to overcome, which was a surprise coming from something that started out as a fun venture.
I had to learn about Instagram’s and Facebook’s algorithm and features quite quickly. And I still have to live with the bugs that they can’t seem to resolve. I had to learn the most efficient ways to track vegan events and slapping them onto a visually pleasing Canva. And I’m now somewhat obligated to catch up to my feeds so I don’t miss events or new vegan vendors on the scene.
I’ve had several moments where I thought of quitting it altogether because of the stress. I wanted to go back to enjoying scrolling my phone like a normal person, with no goal in mind. It would take me an entire evening to make a single calendar; and I’m not one to work on something little by little throughout the week. It would affect my day job, stealing hours in the day to work on content for DVI.
Things would be different if this were my only job, but I don’t have that luxury. I’ve gotten better making content more efficiently and scheduling just one day of the week to be the “stressful” day that I work on my newsletter. I’m learning how to space these heavy tasks out so I can keep a better life balance.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a content creator who specializes in local vegan content for Dallas-Fort Worth. I track all vegan-related events, vegan vendor pop-ups, and vegan group meetups and make it into calendars on multiple platforms (IG, FB, TikTok).
I do vendor spotlights to let people know about new vegan businesses or remind people of businesses they may have forgotten about. These businesses aren’t just brick and mortar. Many are pop-ups, cottage businesses, caterers, meal planners, food trucks; vendors that are harder to find with a simple search or a map. Not even Happy Cow, a vegan’s go-to map has all of this information.
And while my content, aside from the calendars, is mostly on IG and FB Stories, I make sure that those who aren’t on social media often don’t miss out. I publish my DVI newsletter, which provides not only a recap of the stories I’ve shared, but more in-depth information, sometimes more up-to-date calendars, and the occasional op-ed.
I’m best known for my calendars, but I would love to grow Dallas Vegan Insider in becoming the #1 resource for vegans in DFW for recommendations and referrals. “I need a list of people who do vegan cakes.” I’ve got you! “I need to know if there are vegan friendly bars/breweries.” I have a list of that too!
While the journey has been labor intensive, the thanks I receive from vegan vendors for spotlighting their businesses, or hearing someone say in passing, “Oh, Dallas Vegan Insider told us about this event” reminds me that I am contributing in some way to the vegan community and I should continue doing so.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Be prepared to find yourself feeling like what was fun is now a chore. Remind yourself of why you started and question whether that is still your reason to continue. Find a way, quickly, to become efficient in generating your content. Once you find a formula, stick to it for a while so that you can use spare time to be creative in other ways.
A very niche thing I wish I knew starting out: The copy-paste from Excel to a Canva table element does not work well and you need to paste it into a plain text editor like Notepad++! If anyone understands that, we can be friends. Hah!
Contact Info:
- Website:https://linktr.ee/dallasveganinsider
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dallasveganinsider/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dallasveganinsider
- Other: http://dvi.beehiiv.com/
Image Credits
Diego Leon De Jesus
