Three lucky student-athletes will benefit from the generosity of Western Union (WU), one of the associate companies of title sponsors of the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships.

The company has a promotion which is currently ongoing called the WU “Bright Spikes” Awards. It is a scholarship and school support initiative by GraceKennedy Money Services (GKMS) — the agent of Western Union in Jamaica.

The “Bright Spikes” Awards are geared towards student track and field athletes with good GPA’s, who have a parent or financial supporter, legally residing in the US, Canada and/or select Caribbean countries.

The specific criteria to qualify for consideration for the Bright Spikes Awards are:

1) The student-athlete must be on a team participating at the 2019 ISSA GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletic Championships.

2) The student must be attaining over 60 per cent average or highest GPA on the team.

3) The student must have parent(s), relative(s) or financial supporter who is a legal resident in the United States of America; Canada or GKMS Caribbean territory — (Anguilla, The Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, The Cayman Islands, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos) — who sends money back to Jamaica via Western Union.

The “Bright Spikes” awardees will receive the sum of $100,000 to pay for education expenses and $150,000 will go to their school. There will be three awards, one for each county of Jamaica (Cornwall, Middlesex and Surrey).

Pryne-David Royal, marketing officer at GKMS, said his company decided on making a change after three years on running the same Champs promotion.

“Every year we implement a different promotion to involve customers, both local and international. For the past three years we had the “See Champs Live” promotion, giving eight customers from the USA, Canada and the Eastern Caribbean Islands to come and see Champs live.

“This year we decided to do something to help the schools’ sports programmes and athletes.”

The finalists will be announced at the launch of the ISSA GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Track and Field Championships (Champs) on March 13, 2019 and the winners will be announced at Champs on Friday, March 29, 2019.

There will be one athlete chosen as the overall best of the best and that student-athlete will be given a special surprise at Champs.

To enter students must collect entry forms from their schools’ guidance counsellor or download the form from the GKMSONLINE website www.gkmsonline.com.

After completing the application forms, the students must submit application forms and a 450 to 500-word essays to the schools’ guidance counsellors by March 5, 2019 and their last school year’s report which will form part of the selection criteria number 3.

GKMS will collect entry forms from ISSA on March 7, 2019 and vet the entries a panel will select the finalists by March 12, 2019. The county winners will be selected by March 15, 2019 and an overall winner will get an extra special surprise at Champs.