THE sixth staging of ‘Walk For The Cure’, CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank’s principal fund-raiser, is set for Sunday, October 1 at Emancipation Park.

The fund-raiser, which is also a public awareness event to benefit cancer care and research in Jamaica and across the Caribbean, is a partnership with the Jamaica Cancer Society (JCS) that will see the bank “donating all funds raised to the JCS for their life-changing and life-saving work”.

Speaking last Friday at the press launch, Managing Director of CIBC FirstCaribbean Nigel Holness said, since 2012, each year friends, family and customers of the bank and sponsors have participated in the 10-lap walk at Emancipation Park. He noted, too, according to a release, that colleagues in the other 16 islands across the region where the bank operates did likewise for the benefit of their cancer associations.

The events coincide with the “CIBC Run For The Cure”, hosted in Canada by the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and sponsored by the bank’s parent company, CIBC.

Noting that last year the bank presented $3.4 million to JCS and US$500,000 regionally, Holness said: “I am pleased to report that in just five years, ‘Walk For The Cure’ has become one of the region’s largest cancer fund-raisers so far, contributing US$1.3 million in support of cancer care and awareness.”

He thanked the staff, their families and friends and sponsors “for a unified commitment to reducing the incidence of cancer”, the release said.

Meanwhile, ‘Walk For the Cure’ co-chair and chairman of CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank Jamaica, Mark St Hill, said that “cancer has impacted so many in the country and the region, and we must all continue this journey to get rid of this scourge”.

For her part, Yulit Gordon, executive director of JCS, thanked CIBC FirstCaribbean for their continued support of the work of the organisation.