Humboldt was full of peace on Jul. 7 when the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run came through the city.
The run started at the Humboldt Kids Summer Fun Day Camp, before moving on for a run through the town that included stops at Tim Horton’s, PARTNERS Family Services, Causeway Natural Health, the Humboldt Regional Newcomers Centre, and the Humboldt and District Museum, before making their way downtown to Civic Park where a small ceremony was held that included the introduction of their run, and the singing of their peace run song.
Runner, Arpan DeAngelo, was very pleased with how receptive Humboldt was to their run and said during his speech at Civic Park that he would like to come back to Humboldt when he had a little more time to stay for a while.
DeAngelo says it is important to spread their message of peace as much as they can.
“Our motto is peace begins with me and so we have our own responsibility of being peaceful and bringing that out in others and it seems to work.”
The run is part of a four month, 10,000 mile, North American run that started in New York City on Apr. 17 traveling through New Jersey before running down the eastern seaboard to Florida.
After reaching Florida the run traveled along the Gulf Coast, eventually reaching the Mississippi River where they then traveled north to St. Louis.
After stopping in St. Louis the run went out to the west coast stopping in San Diego before traveling down to southern California and into Mexico where they then turned around and traveled up the pacific coast to British Columbia.
The run travels across Canada to Winnipeg where they once again go back to the United States with stops in Minnesota, Chicago, and Michigan before re-entering Canada stopping in Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, and Montreal.
The run concludes in the United States with stops in the New England States, and Connecticut before ultimately wrapping up back in New York City.
DeAngelo says depending on how much time they have to get to their next destination, and what the road conditions are like, the group of approximately ten runners will run roughly 8,000 of the 10,000-mile trek.
The North American run is only one of many that occur worldwide throughout the year, says DeAngelo, who noted there is another run currently taking place in Europe starting in Portugal in March and ending in Rome in October.
The run started in 1987 by Sri Chinmoy as a way to bring people together and has grown to include over 100 countries world wide and features runs in many different places including Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, North America, and Australia.
For DeAngelo, who has been involved with the peace run since its inception, it is really important to spread the message of peace to as many people as he can.
“The earth is our home and we feel that world peace in this world really starts with individual peace, with peace in the heart, with peace in the life, peace in the family, community. That has to be really expressed and spread.”
“If we inspire each other to do good things or be good then we’ll find that that will be reflected in the rest of the world.”
Their idea of peace, says DeAngelo, is not to focus on things they cannot control like war and conflict but things they can control like anti-bullying.
“It means just having a certain amount of peace in your life or peace with nature, respecting your earth, respecting other people, and really that message resonates with a lot of people we meet and even with the children they seem to understand that.”
After stopping in Humboldt in the morning the runners went out on the road stopping in Foam Lake later that afternoon.
