In April and May Golden Year3 (2006), initiates from the Illinois Center went to downtown Chicago to distribute Alternative Living flyers. Some donned festive-looking animal costumes while others held plant and animal figure “picket” signs to demonstrate support for saving animals’ lives through a vegetarian diet.

During the flyer distribution, the response was very positive. A gentleman who worked for the YMCA approached an initiate and asked to get not only a flyer for himself but also additional copies to place at the YMCA. When children saw the initiates wearing the lovely animal costumes, they started smiling and their faces immediately lit up. As a result, many of the parents willingly accepted the flyers. Initiates saw that the children naturally considered animals as their friends and, according to what Master has previously mentioned, that they would not have ever eaten meat if their parents hadn’t introduced them to such a diet.

The picket signs carried by initiates also attracted people’s attention, and many stopped to carefully read them. Even some of those passing by in cars honked as they saw the animal costumes, then stopped their cars to request an Alternative Living flyer. After they finished distributing the flyers, initiates were standing together outside a garage when a car carrying two young people emerged. Seeing the costumes and signs, the two young people put their thumps up, smiled and shouted loudly, “Yes! Be a vegetarian!” Fellow practitioners could not ask for a more perfect ending.