MONTEGO BAY, St James – The Kiwanis Club of Providence/Montego Bay is hoping to raise $3 million from the 10th staging of its annual Breast Cancer 5K Run/Walk set for this Sunday, October 27.

According to chair of the organising committee, Audrey Watson, the club is also hoping that roughly 2,300 people will participate in the walk/run, which is the major fund-raising event for the club.

“We believe that this year’s staging with be the biggest ever. We have given out over 2,600 registration sheets and so we expect that at least 2,300 will take part, which will be the highest number in the history of the event,” Watson, a former president of the club, told Jamaica Observer West.

The event begins at the GWest office complex in Fairview at 6:00 am for the runners, while the walkers will start five minutes later.

From the starting point, the participants will travel to Howard Cooke Boulevard and will make a ‘U’ turn at the traffic lights in the vicinity of KFC, then proceed back to GWest in Fairview.

The initiative is one of the club’s many projects, and forms part of the group’s overall goal of public service to the parish of St James, and to the nation in general. Funds from the event are geared towards research into the cause, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure of breast cancer for thousands of Jamaican women.

Over the past nine years, the club has donated roughly $4 million to the Jamaica Cancer Society.

Watson told Observer West that this year, the Jamaica Cancer Society will again receive the lion’s share of the proceeds from the fund-raiser. The remainder, she noted, will go towards “local cancer- related community projects at the Cornwall Regional Hospital, and persons suffering from breast cancer in St James”.

Earlier this year, the event was given a much-needed boost by Wards Power Tools & Supplies, through an injection of $2 million in sponsorship over the next two years.

Watson, however, is appealing for more sponsors to come on board.

— Mark Cummings