Run, Walk, Bike, or Move
for a Cause
Now there are even more ways to support our seminarians as part of the Race for Seminarians campaign:
How it Works
Join the Race for Seminarians team in one of these roles
Participants
Select the race/event you would like to run/walk/bike/paddle/etc, then register as a member of the Race for Seminarians team and set your fundraising goal.
Sponsors
Prayer Warriors
Add this cause to your daily intentions, or join the St. Therese Vocations Society as way to pray for vocations by name every day.
How Your Efforts Help
The Diocese of Arlington invests a great deal in its seminarians to ensure they become well-formed priests. Their formation, including human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral, requires a commitment of time, effort and money. Your donations to the Race for Seminarians contribute toward the costs of seminarian education as well as seminarian expenses not normally covered by the Diocese.
Build Your Parish Team
A great way to build community, find training partners and support each other as your support our seminarians is to build a Race for Seminarians team in your parish.
Our office is also here to provide you with whatever information and materials we can to get your message out. Here are some suggestions to get you started:
Make a List
Make a list of any runners/walkers/bikers/swimmers/etc from your parish who might want to head up this effort and start talking it up.
Involve Your Pastor
Get your pastor’s approval, and see if he (or another of your priests) is interested in doing a race (the way the campaign is designed now, people can choose the race of their choice, even virtual). As you can imagine having a priest who’s participating makes it much easier to get others on board!
Set Up a Recruitment Table
See if the pastor will allow announcements about the forming of a team, or setting up a table after Mass to recruit, and have a sign-up list for team members, donors, pray-ers.
Contact the Vocations Office
- Once you have at least two people on board, let our office know so that on the race fundraising page we can list your parish as a team, and donations can go there.
Collect Donations
Support the team by having a table set up closer to the race to ask for donations. One parish had a bucket outside the parish office for collecting!
Involve Your Youth Ministry
Contact the directors of youth ministry and see if they can put together a TEEN TEAM to do a race. They could also encourage competition between youth groups of different parishes.
Submit a Bulletin Announcement
Join our (NAME OF PARISH) Team and Bike, Run, Walk, Swim, Pray and Donate to Support our Seminarians! This annual campaign is once again looking for runners, walkers, bikers, swimmers (or whatever you do), to raise money to support our seminarians and to raise vocation awareness.
Tips
1. Have confidence in what you are doing. You wouldn’t have signed up for this if you didn’t believe in the cause; just prepare to share your conviction with others. Your efforts to raise money also raise awareness about this cause and can lead to more donations down the line.
2. Make your plan – whom are you going to contact, how much do you expect to ask/get from each of them; set your own fundraising goal for all your races (see suggested amounts below). Go through your email contacts, your Facebook friends, other people who’ve asked you to sponsor them for things. At the same time, try to make your efforts as personal as possible – if your contacts see you’re emailing 500 other people, they’ll figure “someone else will do it” so you don’t need them.
3. Prepare your story… why am I dedicating my race to the Arlington Seminarians?
4. Take advantage of social media, crowdfunding, and other means to reach more people. Post training milestones stories about your training, or send stories of seminarians.
5. Keep track of the responses/replies/comments and follow up! Make sure they have the links, address, etc. where to send their donations. Give them the fine print. (We can help you with that, too.)
-All pledges are tax deductible
-They can donate by credit card online or mail in a check
-All donations directly support the seminarians of the Diocese of Arlington.
6. Start a Race for Seminarians Team at your parish. Learn more here.
7. Lastly, thank everyone! Big or small, every donation counts. Always remember to thank all of your donors for their generosity.
