Fraser-Pryce 5k moved to Emancipation Park

Organisers have announced that the Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce/Hugh Senior 5K Run/Walk will now take place at Emancipation Park in New Kingston on Saturday.

The event has usually been held in the Waterhouse community but has been moved this year to facilitate a larger turnout.

“The overwhelming support for this event caused us to consider a larger venue to facilitate the enormous response to Shelly-Ann’s goodwill,” Running Events Jamaica director Alfred Francis said. “Emancipation Park will safely hold the numbers expected to turn out on race day for this worthy cause. Persons have been moved by the progress made by the young people in their educational pursuits assisted by our ‘Pocket Rocket,’ Shelly-Ann.”

Launched in 2018, the race was named in honour of Fraser-Pryce’s late pastor, Hugh Senior, of the Penwood Church of Christ, who worked to assist students from the Waterhouse area with financial support for their education through a scholarship fund set up by the Olympian.

Proceeds from last year’s event provided scholarships amounting to $400,000, which benefited Kerrian Miller, UWI; Abigail Grant, Heart Trust/NTA; Khaleel McFarlane, Alaine McIntosh, Noel Clough, Javier James, high school students; Makeba Hughton and Riandrea Lewis, who attend primary school; and Antoine Scott, an early childhood student.

“We are seeking to raise more funds to extend the Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Resource Centre in Waterhouse so we can assist even more young people of the community,” Fraser-Pryce said in her sponsorship proposal dispatched to corporate Jamaica.

At the inaugural run in April 2018, the event attracted roughly 400 participants, and last year, that number increased to approximately 770. Thirty-six and a half per cent of the participants were children, with 63.7 per cent being adults and members of corporate Jamaica.