High school students in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, have responded to Ku Klux Klan fliers distributed in the community last week by holding a rally and offering heart-shaped signs around local businesses.

The racially charged sign was found Friday in front of a house in Doylestown, around 30 miles north of Philadelphia. As a response, students from Central Bucks High School West joined forces with advocacy group Showing Up for Racial Justice to promote inclusion and peace Monday morning.

"We invite all youth to show that the next generation will not tolerate the hate that has increased recently, but will only combat it with love, peace and kindness," Courtney Carr, a senior at Central Bucks High School West who helped organize the march, told the local NBC outlet.

Carr, along with the other marchers, carried heart-shaped signs with messages including “love not hate” and “be kind – love others,” and asked local businesses to post them up in their windows.

“This is a place for everybody,” an owner of a local coffee shop, Annette Coletta, who happily posted one of the signs, told the Bucks County Courier Times. “I take it as a huge compliment that all people feel welcome and safe here.”

The mayor of Doylestown, Ron Strouse, also took part in the event.

"This is in response to a despicable event in our town," he said. "Today shows the strength of our community, its welcoming nature."

"The conversation has to continue. There have to be private conversations, as well.”

Police were continuing to investigate the flier that sparked the rally. It was not the first time promotional material for the KKK has been distributed in recent weeks in Bucks County. The area was one of several to see KKK fliers around local residences ahead of Valentine’s Day. In all, at least seven states were targeted.

Some fliers included a phone number which when rung played a messaged stating, “Greetings you have reached the loyal white knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The largest and most active Klan in America.”

The number of Klan groups has almost doubled in the past two years, reaching 130 in 2016, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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