Association members devised many ingenious ways of presenting the flyer. One sister initiate used the flyer, in addition to the list of Eminent Vegetarian Scientists, as teaching materials for her elementary school class. Another distributed flyers while volunteering as a vegetarian Product Demonstrator in grocery stores. One brother emblazoned his car with magnetic decals which advertised a website.

Locations of distributing flyers in USA. More than 3,000,000 flyers have been distributed in the US & Puerto Rico since January.

The “Alternative Living” car: One brother emblazoned his car with magnetic decals.

Notes from the Field

Austin

One enterprising brother initiate stood at a highway intersection, passing out 300-400 flyers within the space of 3 hours. He reported, “When drivers were waiting for the green light, I walked to them and showed the flyers. Some drivers would read the flyers, and then decide to accept or deny them. But at least they read the flyers already. Although the number I distributed is limited at a few hundred, a lot more people read the flyers already, which cannot be counted.”

Florida

“I gave out one flyer at work and pinned it on the bulletin board. When I came back to work, the flyer was on the desk at the main nurses’ station and has been sitting there for days, and the girls have been making copies of it!”

“There is a new movie coming up called “Celestine Prophecy”…They are running a full-length previews at churches and spiritual organizations. This is a very good opportunity to give out flyers. I attended two previews myself.

“After viewing the movie, many people were deeply inspired by the notion of an upcoming spiritual era of love and divine power and they were very happy to receive a flyer about love for our animal friends. In the first preview, I asked the hostess for permission to distribute the flyers and she said okay (her husband is almost vegetarian). Later in the second preview, I saw a ticket lady (who is vegan herself) actually pointing people to take the flyer after they got the tickets as if it were part of the program.”

Virginia

After the ad in The Washington Post Express newspaper came out, a disciple who works in Washington DC reported that several of her co-workers came to tell her that they received the Express newspaper in the Metro subway stations and saw the ad from our organization, and that it was good information.

As fellow practitioners handed out the flyers to pedestrians, there were several occasions that people turned back to tell us that it was very good information. A couple stopped to tell us that they have been vegetarians for 30/40 years and wanted to know more about our organization. We gave them our website and contact information, and they later called back requesting to be notified of our upcoming seminar in April.

When one of the fellow practitioners was giving out flyers in the Fairfax area, an Indian lady liked our flyer and asked for a soft copy by e-mail. She is Hindu and has been giving out vegetarian booklets to people around her. She thought our flyers are better and wants to print many copies to give to others.

We went to the Smithsonian Museums in Washington DC to hand out flyers to the tourists outside the Museums for two weekends. Washington DC is one of the most popular tourist destinations, where visitors come from all parts of the US, as well as from all over the world. We plan to pass out flyers routinely at various tourist attractions as the weather warms up, especially at the very popular Cherry Blossoms Festival.

Canada

One of the initiates was scheduled to visit her sister in Winnipeg, Manitoba just after the flyers came out. The instructions Master gave were to distribute in all parts of our country, so she quickly changed her flight plans and was able to continue onto the east coast of Canada, to Halifax, Nova Scotia (for a minimal change flight fee). She felt this was an exciting opportunity, for though she has been to other continents, she had never been to the east coast of Canada.

In Winnipeg, she was pleasantly surprised. She went to stores, coffee shops, and a university, and in each place she came across young people who told her that either they were vegetarian, vegan, or their parents were. At the University of Manitoba, one young man said, "I’m so happy you are doing this. I am vegan." Many of the people seemed interested in the flyers.

However, her biggest surprise was in Halifax. Prior to her visit she had the notion that Vancouver (west coast) was somehow more “advanced spiritually” than the east coast. She found out how wrong she was. People were open and friendly in accepting flyers. Almost all the shops she went into accepted the flyers happily. Quite a few of especially young people (in their 20's or so) said they were vegetarian or vegan. The whole feeling of the city was absolutely uplifting. For example, she went to an art college to see if she could put some flyers on the billboard. The college happened to be closed that day, with a security guard sitting at the entrance. When the initiate found out it was closed, she asked if she could leave flyers, half expecting to be refused. However, the security guard looked at it and said that of course he would put them up on the board and leave some in the animal protection area, and that students were very interested in this.

Another example: the sister went into a pet store to buy a toy to bring back to her dog. Usually pet stores have got a lot of meat products, so she was not sure they would be interested in the Alternative Living flyer. However, the owner was a vegetarian who was totally delighted to accept them, and has another business of dog daycare where she gives the dogs vegetarian snacks. The conversation led to meditation, and the woman soon was the very happy recipient of a Sample Booklet.

The initiate was able to leave many flyers and some Sample Booklets (mainly in a spiritual bookstore) in Halifax, so was very happy with her short stay there. She would love to go back whenever possible.

By the way, this initiate now takes her dog for "distribution" walks, where they go house to house giving out flyers. The dog just loves it; she has been told the good work she is doing.

There are also good stories from Greater Vancouver. Many people said they, their brother, sister, or boss are vegetarian. One sister was handing out flyers on the street. A couple passed and the woman said, "No." However, the flyer had already caught the man's eye and he happily accepted it. Both of them then read it intently. Many people seem to be looking at them carefully after they received them.

We are all (including the dog!) loving this distribution work. Thank You, Master.