Inspiring Change Through Hospitality - Jeff Stanford, Stanford Inn

Jeff: We feel that we can make an impact. Now look, we're the only vegan resort in the United States and Canada. There are very few around the world at all. Our mission is to advocate for you eating that way. You become healthier. I don't take any medications. By this time, my father was not in good shape, and my mother did not make it to my age. The plant-based diet is amazing. The energy that I have compared to the people I see coming in here. And I'm usually older than they are. So, I mean, it's a win-win situation. The planet wins. We can stay here. You know, a bunch of tech people are saying we've got to go to Mars. We've got to create an atmosphere there because we've destroyed this planet. What the hell are they talking about? Why not fix the planet by just fixing our behavior? The only problem is us. It isn't the elephant. It isn't the skunks and the black bears that run around here. It's us, it's all us, and it's mostly what we eat. And there's another little problem and it's called we fly around a little bit too much. You know, it's much safer to drive around a lot better and then probably not go to Europe so much. However, I think that it is important to travel to these places and not become a George W. Bush who had, I understand, really not been out of the country and had that kind of experience like I had living in Spain. And other places that I've been that were totally possible. But when you get to Europe, you should stay there for a long time like I did and live in Spain and then go to Paris and live there for a little while. You find out about other cultures, and you become broader because of it.

Josiah: So an opportunity that you feel you have with this inn and this restaurant where if someone is coming from somewhere else, they visit here, they say this food's amazing. Do you think there's something with travel that allows us to step outside of our day-to-day routines and how we've lived life and experienced it?

Jeff: A hundred percent. But do you have to fly to Greece? No. Okay. The point that I think we need to make for ourselves is to get out of your daily life so you can actually see it. And you can't see it from inside so often. So when you come to Carmel even, or here, which this is a kind of even, or you don't really go that far, don't go to a casino because that's enhancing and building on all this stuff that you really, you know, greed and, you know, the fear of loss and all that kind of stuff, and it can get into, an addiction, but don't do that, don't feed that, feed yourself on what's natural. We get kids here sometimes; they come from wealthy families, and it's the first time they've really seen an animal anywhere on the ground, like a llama, or I want cows, I want a couple of cows, they're really heavy though, so they're hard on the earth, but I have the horses and they're all rescue animals, basically rescue animals, and they get to see them, and if they go out, we have nearly tame raccoons, they really are tame, They never bite or anything, but they, famous last words, they don't bite. But you'll see them, they'll come out from under there where the trash is and stuff like that, and they raise their babies. They bring them up to where our cat food is, so we have stopped that. But they eat the compost. And, you know, they are predominantly scavengers. They're not like skunks that kill animals to eat. We have them, too. They are, they scavenge stuff, and they're, they're pleasant animals, but people need to see them. And they, children, they need to know that they're part of that life. They're part of nature. And it's really hard to identify with a piece of concrete. It's easier to identify with a rock. We came here with a mundane idea about what hospitality is. It wasn't because we were in California. We were struck by something that is everywhere except in a big, big, huge city, maybe, but it's actually there too. We were struck by nature just being here or being in Carmel. Or being in Manitoba, where we go up to in the summer. But the point is that we shaped hospitality by being, I think, by being sensitive to where we were. And we would have done it in Manitoba. So that means we would not own a motel kind of thing or a hotel kind of thing where they're already making their money on slot machines. We wouldn't do that. We would be doing, well, this kind of thing. And I'm sure of it. It's just a matter of seeing what's really around you, but if you're into that, you know, if it's about money, if it's about all those kinds of things, we made it not about money. We made it about lifestyle, and that's what we're doing. We're taking care of people by providing a place of nature. That's what happens, and everything has come from that. That's been our understanding. You educate by example. Hospitality is the stage in which we can present this.