Mark Your Calendar: Race & Festival for World Peace – October 23, 2010

Strap up your running shoes and get training. In connection with UN Day and UN Week celebrations in Washington, DC, Sister Cities International will host its second Race & Festival for World Peace this fall on Saturday morning, October 23 in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood.

Will you join us in DC? Will you host your own walk or run in your town? It’s not too hard to grab a few friends passionate about the world and go for a walk. Let us know about it (and send a picture or two!) and we’ll make a big deal of your efforts! Find out more at www.raceforworldpeace.org.

And We're Off! Race for World Peace (part 3)

A visual post from our Festival - enjoy the array of photos. I couldn't squeeze in all 12 performances. But we have a little something from the eight cultures/countries represented.

Many thanks to our major sponsors Collective Media, The Hill, and BP, as well as all of our in-kind donors. Without their help our event could not have been a success.

   Our African drummers thundered Pennsylvania Avenue

     Modern Dance

     Traditional Indian Dance

      Ukranian wedding dance

     DJ Undadog with World Beats

    Clowns and Henna tatoo artists

Jugglers and face painters

      Flamenco energy warmed up the audience

   

   By the end of the festival, the Bolivian dancers had us jumping

And We're Off! 1st Race & Festival for World Peace (part 1)

I'm out of breath and so is the staff. Two weeks ago, we hosted the Sister Cities Leadership meetings in DC and last weekend, the Race. Gladly I can say, both were a rousing success.

Anytime you host a first time event it is - how can one say this politely - a learning experience. The staff "learned" quite a bit about how to navigate the DC city government to get all of the appropriate event permits. We learned how to correctly hold an 8oz cup of water for runners whirling by a water station. We even learned that there are such people as grouchy balloon artists. But most importantly - we had a lot of fun getting to our finish line, which was Race Day.
The festival stage set-up started at the pre-dawn hour of 3am. The Pennsylvania Avenue transformation started. By 7am, the staff had the registration and information tents ready and sponsor banners were lightly flapping in the breeze.
As 9am approached the police appeared en masse, the roads closed, and the course marshalls were in place. With over 500 runners/walkers registered from 17 states and DC, folks hurried to find their place for the start. At this moment, all the open-ended questions I had thought about for nine months ran through my head: would the runners like the course, will people show up for the festival, are the first festival performers here, do we have enough port-a-johns, will the rain hold-off to name a few. As I stood about 50 yards down from the Start Line, it was definitely a thrill to have the participants rush by as the event got underway.
I should note that despite the 90% chance of rain forecast the evening before, we happily enjoyed overcast skies and 65 degree temperatures for the whole event (with the exception of a brief 5-minute shower at the start of the festival.)

Just 15 minutes later, it was all over - sort of. At least for the quickest male athlete, Demesse Tefera was the first winner of the Race for World Peace with a time of 15:10. The top female runner appeared shortly thereafter. Hirut Mandefro took the top female prize with a time of 17:04. Supporting family members and friends created a human channel of cheers and applause that stretched from the Finish Line about 100 yards out.
Over the next hour we encouraged, hooted, and prodded our participants on to the Finish Line. (Official timings.) On to the awards ceremony and the festival!

Many thanks to our major sponsors of the event: Collective Media, The Hill, and BP, as well as all of in-kind donors,

(Stay tuned to this space for a series of perspectives on the race, our festival, and the four virtual races that happened in the U.S. abroad.)

You're Gonna Need Your Sneakers

I'm inviting blog followers, your friends, your relatives, your neighbors, and all Sister City members to join us on October 24, 2009 for the first-ever Sister Cities International Race & Festival for World Peace. Hosted on UN Day, we'll be hosting this 5K Run/Walk in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, DC. The event is followed by our World Cultures Festival which is free and open to the public. There will be prize giveaways, kids/family activities, food, music, dance, DJs, and tents to explore cultures and countries from around the globe. Sign up for the Race before October 10 and get the best registration rate.

We have concurrent races happening in Fort Worth, TX and Dixon, IL as well as locations in France and Romania.

Aren't DC-based? No problem - register for the Race on our site, we'll send you the event t-shirt, and you can get some friends together to walk that same morning and be part of this inaugural international event.

Got questions? Check us out at http://www.raceforworldpeace.org/. See you on the 24th!