Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Millions of pro-life advocates lined the streets of hundreds of communities across America on Sunday braving cold winds or heat and humidity to tell their neighbors an important message. The annual LifeChain is an opportunity to let people know that abortion kills children and hurts women.Demonstrators pray and stand silently as cars passed through the busy intersections. Some honk and wave in support of the pro-life message while others give participants rude gestures.
Some 200 people joined the event in Roanoke, Virginia, including 59 year-old Barney Arthur.
"We want to reach out to everybody and this is one way of doing it. ... It's a visible symbol to the community," he said.
Maple, Ohio residents also participated and, according to event coordinator Helen Fedorke, "This is our sixth year having a local event, and we usually have about 200 people join us."
"This is an interdenominational event and we try to get the word out to everyone. We don't want to miss any church. And it's open to the public, too," she said.
She started the event there after participating in it in her native South Carolina and found out her local community didn't have one.
"It was always a pretty nice event, and I thought, 'We need to have a Life Chain here,'" Fedorke recalled. "So I opened my mouth and they made me the coordinator of it."
Teens and college students also participate and Ohio student Andea Ross says the event is sorely needed to help her peers remember what abortion does.
"Abortion happens so often, I don't think people even think about it, that it's even important, but it is," she said.
More than 50 people from 10 various churches participated in the Life Chain in Noblesville, Indiana, northeast of Indianapolis.
Alice Lafuze, who's organized the Life Chain in Richmond for 10 years, said she's seen more than 100 come out for the event this year.
"If you believe life begins at conception then abortion is murder," Lafuze said. "We support life. We think life is important."
Some cities have held LifeChain events for 20 years since the pro-life demonstration first began, while others, such as Cheyenne, Wyoming, had a LifeChain for only the second time in recent years.
Just over 30 Cheyenne residents gathered on a busy intersection to share the pro-life message with their community and, while the number was smaller compared with most cities, residents were elated that their numbers had grown from the small band of five stalwarts who participated last year.