By practitioners from Rochester, NY

(Clearwisdom.net May 14, 2003) The annual Lilac Festival in Rochester, upstate New York is a traditional festival well known in the area. This year's Lilac Festival fell around the date of the 11th anniversary of the first public introduction of Falun Dafa worldwide, and carries a special meaning. In order to utilize this opportunity to spread the Fa to the public, clarify the truth as well as celebrate the 11th anniversary, for the 3rd year local Falun Dafa practitioners participated in the Lilac Festival celebrations.

May 11 was the first day of the Lilac Festival. It was a crisp and sunny day. The festival was packed with visitors with great enthusiasm. The yellow and blue English banner entitled "Falun Dafa" and "May 13 World Falun Dafa Day" surrounded by colorful balloons were very eye catching from a distance. Many visitors stopped and read the Dafa introductory posters made by the practitioners. The Jiang regime's persecution of Falun Dafa in China has been well known to many westerners. Many visitors put their thumbs up to encourage and praise us. They asked to sign the petition form to appeal and called for Jiang's regime to stop persecuting Falun Gong in China.

A lady in her 40's read all of the poster very carefully and was shocked by the cruelty of Jiang's regime. She asked for many truth-clarifying materials to let her friends know about what is happening in China.

In the afternoon, US Senator Schumer and two of his assistants showed up among the visitors. One of the practitioners recognized him and went up to greet him. Senator Schumer was one of the first senators who called on the Chinese government to stop persecuting Falun Gong in 1999. After that, he has signed many resolutions to support Falun Gong. We thanked him for his support of Dafa and invited him to tour our booth. Schumer gave us a thumbs up and told the practitioners and other visitors: "Thank you for being here. Americans do not like what China is doing. ...Democracy will be in China someday."

Our activity ended successfully after the sun set.