Angie Quinn has been a vegetarian since she was a teenager. When she first tried the lifestyle, she was a high schooler simply trying to improve her diet.

“I was eating lots of salads,” says Quinn, 47 and of Fort Wayne. “I didn’t have meat for about a month. I said, ‘How long can I go?’ ”

It’s been 30 years. These last 10, she’s been vegan, too, forgoing not just meat but any meat byproducts.

It started one Lenten season when her kids began harping on her for not having to give anything up since she was already a vegetarian. She said, “OK, I’ll be vegan for Lent.”

After those 40 days, her already limited ability to digest dairy had gone away entirely, so she made the change permanent.

Aside from dietary benefits to veganism, Quinn says she keeps up the regimen for environmental reasons – big farming causes water pollution. Because her primary motivation is not animal-related, Quinn will have an egg on rare occasions, so long as the chicken was raised locally in a small flock by someone she knows.

Until last week, Quinn served as the executive director of ARCH Inc. She stepped down to open her own bakery, something she’s wanted to do for some time. She and her husband have sold baked goods at local farmers markets for 2 1/2 years, so she knew a full-time bakery interested her. After her sister-in-law opened a bakery out east about a year ago, she realized that running a bakery might not be as impossible as she thought.

She has signed a letter of intent with Arts United to open The Pembroke Bakery, named after Quinn’s street of residence, in the Auer Center for Arts and Culture on East Main Street around Labor Day.

The Pembroke Bakery will offer both vegan and non-vegan baked goods and sandwiches.