After a wonderful stay at the Days Inn of Flagstaff, we started our partial day off by running short mileage in the morning into Flagstaff to two different schools.

The first school, Christensen Elementary School, received us with the Mayor Joseph Donaldson and other town officials including members of the Police Department. Mr. Onteveros, the principal of the school, along with the Officers and members of the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) conducted a graduation ceremony for the 4th and 5th grade children involved in the anti-drug program before we ran in with the Harmony Torch. Salil introduced the run and how we must all work together to build a more harmonious world. It was heartwarming to celebrate positive concepts of harmony and friendship along with the healthy aspects of living drug and cigarette free, as D.A.R.E. encourages. Afterwards, Mayor Donaldson spent some time with some of the runners discussing his lovely town of Flagstaff and his own personal experiences in making Flagstaff a modern town.

Moving on, we ran to a school called ‘New Start’. It is an alternative educational program with about 93 children. It is meant to foster creative learning along with positive and harmonious emotional development. We are very grateful to all the kids and the staff including Dane Gruver, the head administrator, and the teachers including Mitch Peterson Greg Reiff, Jill Pressman, who discovered us the day before and arranged for us to visit the school, and counselor Nicole DeGomez.

Unfortunately we could not get everyone’s name, but everyone at New Start contributed so much by their presence and participation. We had time to answer lots of questions and just talk informally with the kids and staff. This means a lot to us as we try to learn more about the practical aspects of establishing harmonious understanding with the younger generation especially.

We wish to offer our gratitude not only to the schools in Flagstaff today but also to the media who came out to cover our presence there. The Arizona Daily Sun had wonderful photo of Goran with the torch later that day. We are very grateful to Adria, the manager of Pasto Italian Dining and Atul Chopra of Indian Paradise, both which offered us delicious meals the evening before. For lunch, we were offered six delicious veggie burger meals at the Downtown Diner. Flagstaff was a wonderful town with great people who welcomed us warmly, from the wonderful Mayor to the children. We will never forget our stay in Flagstaff, a city surrounded by snow capped mountains to the north and desert plains to the south.

Arpan and the team

New Start

An enthusiastic teacher, Jill Pressman, overheard our girls team at an Indian restaurant in Flagstaff having too much fun and speaking with a variety of accents. She and her friend Steve Swaime had to enquire what they were doing and where they were from, which led to Jill inviting the team to come to make a presentation to her high school class of at-risk students.

The next day the team finished up at Jill’s class at the school “New Start”. Her students may have seen rough times and may be thought to be too difficult to place in a traditional classroom, however we found them extremely engaging and expressive. We fielded a variety of questions and even found familiarity with hometowns across the nation. The class moved outside to pass the torch in a circle on the basketball court. Everyone then spontaneously broke out in groups that continued talking or just simply played hackey-sack. It was perhaps the most engaging high school ceremony we have had on the Run, and we thank the class and their teacher, Jill Pressman and her fellow teachers for such a warm and inspiring time together. .

Natabara

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