CHRISTMAS CANDLELIGHT VIGIL FOR PEACE TO FEATURE 
LARGE PEACE SIGN, BELL-TOLLING, AND CAROLING AT LOCKHEED MARTIN IN VALLEY FORGE  

Christmas Vigil & Anti-War Protest to Emphasize the Season's Promise of Peace
at a time of Afghan War escalation and Lockheed Martin's War Profiteering

Who: Brandywine Peace Community, the decades-old faith-based peace activist group
What: Christmas Candlelight Vigil for Peace 
When: Tuesday, December 22, 7PM
Where: Lockheed Martin weapons complex, Mall & Goddard Boulevards, King of Prussia/Valley Forge, PA (behind the King of Prussia Mall, across from the United Artist King of Prussia movieplex).

Why: to emphasize the peace message of the holiday season; and to protest the escalating war in Afghanistan and the world’s largest war profiteer, Lockheed Martin.  

Details: Amidst the area’s largest shopping district, the annual Christmas anti-war vigil and candlelight peace ceremony will take place in front of the main entrance to Lockheed Martin on Goddard Boulevard near Mall Boulevard, behind the King of Prussia Mall,  beginning  with a  candlelight vigil and bell-tolling followed by a Christmas Service featuring caroling, reading of the Nativity story, and featured readings.  A large wooden peace sign will sit throughout the vigil in front of the Lockheed Martin identification sign at the entrance to the Valley Forge facility. 

Throughout the vigil and service, members of the activist group will hold banners and signs including:, “Resist Lockheed Martin, the Face of War-making Today”, "Stop the War(s)", and “We Declare Peace”.  Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest weapons corporation and war profiteer, including the escalating war in Afghanistan and continuing U.S. occupation of Iraq.   Among its numerous multi-billion dollar Pentagon contracts, the arms giant produces systems for sea-launched cruise missiles at its Valley Forge complex.

The group will also announce plans for its “Make War No More ! Martin Luther King Day of Nonviolent Resistance”, beginning at noon on January 18, 2009, at Lockheed Martin at Mall & Goddard Boulevards in Valley Forge.  The Martin Luther King Day peace demonstration will include nonviolent civil disobedience.

The Brandywine Peace Community, now in its fourth decade, regularly demonstrates at Lockheed Martin, the ongoing focus of its area wide peace campaign, and has been a leader in protests and nonviolent resistance to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Over the past three decades its dramatic acts of protest, including hundreds of arrests for nonviolent civil disobedience, have highlighted the area’s peace activist landscape..

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Brandywine Peace Community
P.O. Box 81 Swarthmore, PA 19081 - (610) 544-1818
e-mail: brandywine@juno.com         www.brandywinepeace.com