Valleyfest 2007
Sep 22nd, 2007 by admin
Practitoners Participate in Valleyfest Celebration for Seventh Consecutive Year
On September 22, 2007, Falun Gong practitioners from Spokane participated in the annual Spokane Valleyfest Celebration in Mirabeau Park of the Spokane Valley. This is the eighteenth year of the Valleyfest festival, which attracts over 30,000 people each year. Included are music, arts, and activities for children of all ages. This year is the seventh year that Falun Gong has participated in this event.
Practitioners hosted a booth and taught people how to fold paper lotus flowers. Flowers were brought in a semi-assembled state, so visitors could get hands-on experience making the flowers. During this one-day event, over 700 flowers were created and distributed to visitors. Each flower had a tag which read “The world needs Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance” and included the moral discipline reminder and meaning of the lotus flower.
One difference from previous years was that many visitors this year asked about the meaning of the lotus flower, and what it signifies. Many adults also read the flower tags, with this meaning, to their young children. Some visitors also mentioned that they still had their lotus flowers from the previous year.
As practitioners were packing up to leave, a group of children stopped to thank them for the flowers they had received earlier during the day.