TheGrio's 100: Jonathon Prince, 'athli-vist' organizing plans to run the first mile on the Moon

theGRIO's 100 - Jonathon Prince did not spend most of his life as an athlete...

Jan 30, 2012

Jonathon Prince did not spend most of his life as an athlete. He wasn’t even into running – it was something an old girlfriend convinced him to take up as a joint activity. After Prince left college, he began working a full-time job behind-the-scenes on reality TV shows, and waiting for something better to come along. That something turned out to be running to raise money for causes he felt would motivate him to keep pounding the pavement, and he hasn’t stopped.

“I was looking for substance, I was looking for passion,” he said. “I had followed the cookie-cutter model of what life is supposed to be. It wasn’t until I started to meditate, and as I did that, my world around me started to change, and Katrina hit and that’s when I felt my call to answer.”

In 2005, the self-proclaimed social athlete-activist — which he coined “athlivist” – decided to create a cross-country run from his home state of California to Georgia to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims.

“It was just seeing the devastation, seeing people that overnight had everything washed away from them,” he said. “There was something about putting some sweat and labor behind it to give completely of myself for those that I may or may not ever come in contact with, but it was just the legwork that I wanted to do.”

He embarked on his run across the U.S. and made it to his alma mater, Clark Atlanta University, in five months, and won a key to the city of New Orleans for his efforts.

Prince has since ran thousands of miles and raised over one hundred thousand dollars for charitable causes, including Habitat for Humanity and Bread for the World.

Jonathon Prince is making history as… an innovator who has made a career out of helping others by running. He recently completed a self-initiated 60-day, 795-mile solo run in California to support positive global change.

What’s next for Jonathon?

Prince is planning a one-mile run on the moon within the next few years.

“It’s my way of demonstrating (there’s) no capacity of human potential,” he said. “The moon is something that we can all look up to at night. We all share it, it’s one thing that we all have in common, and it breaks the barriers of everything here down on earth.”

Jonathon in his own words…

“There’s times when I’ll just run without any subject on my mind and I can barely go a couple miles,” Prince told theGrio. “But when I pull out the 25, 30 miles for a reason, then it goes into human motivation. It’s important to find the motivation behind everything you do. It’s important to find whatever drives you, and after that motivation is found there’s practically no limit to anything you can do.”

A little-known fact about Jonathon Prince…

So far Prince has ran more than 10,000 miles for charity.

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