(Minghui.org) On September 21, 2013, Falun Gong practitioners participated in the 32nd Annual LarkFEST, New York State’s largest one-day street festival. About 80,000 visitors attended the event which featured more than a 100 vendors offering crafts, food and drinks, visual arts, live music, poetry, and magic acts.

The practitioners handed out fliers and collected signatures to help support U.S. House Resolution 281, which calls on China to immediately stop the practice of organ harvesting from its prisoners, particularly from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience and “members of other religious and ethnic minority groups.”

Practitioners raise awareness

After a woman signed the petition, she asked a practitioner to teach her each of the five sets of Falun Dafa exercises. Many passersby paused to watch the woman carefully practicing the exercise movements.

The practitioners gave a paper lotus flower to everyone who signed the petition. A practitioner asked a student, “Have you signed the petition, yet.” The girl replied, “Yes, I've already signed and received a lotus flower. Thank you. These six people are my friends,” she said pointing. “I asked them to come over to sign the petition, too.”

A Chinese student stopped by the practitioners' booth and asked to sign the petition. “Do you know that Falun Gong practitioners are being persecuted in China?” asked a practitioner. She nodded, “Yes, I know.”

Many people signed the petition during the one-day event. Some people said that they had already known about the Chinese Communist Party's crimes of live organ harvesting, while others said that they heard about organ trafficking in China from media reports or their friends.