At Reno Bike Project we did public giveaways of light sets (not the best, they were free from the DOT, but better than none). We had them available at our community bike shop and gave them away during 2-3 hour pop-up events in public places (bus stations, popular intersections, university campus) with an RBP brochure and some bike safety literature.

Our only rule was that we'd only give one set away per person with their bike (no extra sets for friends who weren't present or without seeing the bike). We also gave a few away to people using wheelchairs, no problem. We had a lot of success in distributing them and talking to/educating passers-by. Unfortunately, we found out after a couple years that the front light wasn't, in fact, bright enough to meet the NRS on bike lights at night, and people were getting ticketed by the cops. So NDOT kind of screwed up on that one. I digress; am attaching the survey we asked recipients to complete in return for their lights.