About World Peace Run, Inc.| Kailua Kona, Hawai

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OUR MISSION

To focus on solutions and manifest results that contributes to humanities evolution toward achieving relative world peace before the end of this century. To help reduce imbalance and dysfunction that is thriving in our communities, our country and our world. Education is the key, peace is the focus, and understanding is paramount. At a minimum it will require each of us recognize our individuality/personality and the responsibility that is inherent in knowing who we are. For those who find life’s challenges overwhelming, our planned SocialWelfareNetwork.com (SWN) will one day soon be available to assist the impoverished, disabled and elderly with their needs by serving as a conduit between those who ask for a hand up and those hands being altruistically extended to assist who we can.

WPRI is committed to help increase the peace and to help insure that new generations may realize peace worldwide. Together we can evolve a future where new generations may live in a time when the human condition is on par worldwide, on a planet that has been cleaned up, and is being nurtured by everyone living on it. It will not be easy and will take decades, but it is possible if we unite and work together for future Peace!

World Peace Run®, Inc. is a Hawaii Registered 501(c)(3) Public Charity. Contributions are tax deductible. WPRI is non-religious and non-political, respecting all those who peacefully are.

THE EVOLUTION TO WORLD PEACE RUN, INC. by Founder, Gary Theriault

In 1984, needing to challenge myself to break free from an over indulging lifestyle, I entered the lottery to compete in the Kona Ironman Triathlon World Championship. Picked and representing Oregon as a resident I went to Kona, Hawai’i in September 1984 for the October race. For economical reasons my wife Elizabeth and son Jerome remained in Portland.

I was alone preparing to do something I really didn’t know the depth of while dealing with the insecurities of my life and the challenge I committed to complete. As I searched for my truth, my inner strength, I witnessed famine in Ethiopia (1983-85, 200,000 had died by Oct. 1984, 400,000 died before it ended in 1985) on a 13" television in the little studio I rented in Kona while I prepared for the Ironman. I remember returning to the studio each night and while settling in watching the news, crying every time Ethiopia was reported on. I wondered how it was possible I could be so insecure with my abundant life while seeing the reality in Ethiopia, death and suffering of such magnitude, I was humbled and started thinking beyond myself.

After completing the 1984 Kona Ironman I returned to Oregon with the emotions of Ethiopia remaining fresh on my mind and in my heart and over time the idea of GIST was conceived; GREATER International Services Trust, an International Disaster Relief Organization. For many years I visualized GIST participating in international peace building through community service and disaster relief, but as the years passed GIST slowly went into hibernation. Then in 2001 during the 9/11 disaster the essence of GIST resurfaced and transformed into what is now World Peace Run, Inc. (WPRI). The WPRI plan included a Seven Stage World Peace Run® (WPR) that would eventually circumnavigate our planet to encourage peace building. GIST is now part of the much larger WPRI plan and in the future will provide the relief services I visualized all those years ago.

In June 2011, almost ten years after 9/11, WPRI was incorporated and the process to turn it into a public charity began. The application for 501(c)(3) tax exempt approval was submitted in November 2011. It took 18 months and the removal of the planned Seven Stage World Peace Run® (WPR) before the IRS would finally approve our application for tax exemption; granted on 26 April 2013. The Seven Stage WPR will now be privately funded and I will do Stage One, World Peace Run, North America, starting on the Summer Solstice, June 20, 2016. WPR will wind through hundreds of communities from Berlin, New Hampshire to Niagara Falls, through Canada north of Lake Erie, re-entering the U.S. near Detroit, then southwest to Baja California, Mexico finishing by the Autumn Equinox on September 22, 2016. We will carry a message of peace along the way and share our adventure on social media as we upload GPS, videos, photos, Q&A and much more, encouraging people from around the world to think World Peace and support the full concept of WPRI.

Mahalo for listening,

Peacefully yours,

Gary, World Peace Runner