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ROME Nine U.S. seminarians studying in Rome, loaded with peanut butter sandwiches, power bars, Gatorade, grit and prayer, ran relay-style across the Italian peninsula to raise funds for displaced families in Iraq.

Warm-up included a pre-dawn Mass May 6 at the Pontifical North American College where the students live, followed by packing two vans with nine runners, two drivers and protein- and carb-rich provisions, Christian Huebner of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., told Catholic News Service May 4.

One van headed to the Mediterranean Sea near Fiumicino and the other van went east to the Adriatic Sea.

When we arrive, we dip a finger in the water and run to the middle of the peninsula, which is about 240 miles across, he said. The students meet up in the middle by evening in some random parking lot as long as it had a gas station and pizzeria to replenish tanks and tummies.

He said the men take turns running one leg of five to nine miles to a planned checkpoint and then the finishing runner would slap hands to hand-off the virtual baton to the next runner in the relay.

The men stretched and rested in the moving van, encouraging the one on the road along the way, he said.

The one-day run raised more than $15,000 dollars, in part thanks to an anonymous donor who matched every dollar pledged. The money goes to the pontifical foundation, Aid to the Church in Need, which will use the funding to continue a program that feeds some of the 12,000 displaced families from Mosul living in Irbil.

The Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Irbil, in conjunction with other aid agencies, is the largest provider of aid to the displaced families in that area, the seminarians said on their Roman Run for Erbil donor page.

The Chaldean Church organizes pastoral programs, runs seven schools that are open to displaced children and provides food aid, said the donor page on the http://www.ChurchInNeed.org site.

This was the third year a group of U.S. seminarians led by Deacon Michael Zimmerman of the Archdiocese of Boston got together to do a fundraising run for a common cause. Past efforts raised money for a seminary in Haiti, a pro-life center in the United Kingdom and the Syriac Catholic Church, Huebner said.

Unfortunately, he said, Zimmerman, the runs founder, had to miss this years run because of a soccer injury.

The biggest and most important aim of the relay run, Huebner said, was supplying prayer for and solidarity with those who are suffering.

One thing the Holy Father says, is the importance of taking prayer with you along the way every day, and the Roman Run does that, he said, with prayer being a part of the training, fundraising and race.

We use the opportunity to encourage people to a life in prayer, no matter where we find ourselves in life, Huebner said. Prayer can soak into any part of life like a sponge.

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US seminarians run across Italy to help displaced families in Iraq - Crux: Covering all things Catholic