Jog For Hope 2011: Another Day in Paradise
17th July 2011 marked another important milestone for the organizing team of Jog for Hope as they managed to make the event a huge success. That was the day where the Sri Hartamas vicinity was transformed into a sea of people from all walks of life who came together for one noble cause to collect funds for the needy. The grueling preparation started months ago with meticulous planning by the organizing committee led by Kelly Lim with help from the ECA office.The biggest challenge was to advertise the event and get participants to sign up for the jog. Even though the committee found out another event, the Mc Donald’s Olympic Day Fun Run was to be held on the same day, they were not upset or disappointed. In fact, this spurred the team to work harder. The courage and utter optimism that they had shown along the way was truly inspiring and should be lauded. As a reward, Jog for Hope 2011 received 1800 participants, a two- fold increment from last year. Indeed, Kelly and her team should be proud of their achievement.
The event started off with the registration as early as 6.00 a.m. in the morning. The volunteers were so busy handling the registration while the participants seemed happy and keen to start jogging. The emcees of the day, Monija and Muhammad Adib managed to pump up the hype and enthusiasm to the event despite the early hours. A warming up session was done by some instructors from Fitness First before the flag off to make sure that no one gets muscle cramps or spasm after the jog.
The main highlight of this year’s Jog for Hope is none other than Miss Universe Malaysia 2011, Ms. Deborah Henry. Perhaps, it is her beauty and fame that attracted majority of the people, especially Taylor’s students to attend the event. Once a Taylor’s student herself, the friendly and cheerful lady was very happy to be invited as one of the VIPs on that day. All the photographers were hooked to their camera and tried to snap as many photos of her as possible. The students who got the opportunity to interview her could not stop smiling the whole day. I believe it was a life time experience for some of them. There was also a lucky draw on that day which offered a lunch date with Deborah Henry as the prize.
The event managed to raise funds worth RM 25, 000, which is an improvement from last year’s collection. The funds will be channeled to Malaysia Nature Society and PT Foundation. Both are non- profit organizations that specialize in preserving nature and helping the people who suffer from HIV and AIDS respectively. What matters most is not the money, but, the ultimate aim is to create and ingrain awareness among the society so that there will always be such events in future. With that said I hope there will be Jog for Hope 2012 and let us pray that this event will be held on a larger scale next year with more number of participants and bigger collection.
Where the Joggers start.
The event started off with the registration as early as 6.00 a.m. in the morning. The volunteers were so busy handling the registration while the participants seemed happy and keen to start jogging. The emcees of the day, Monija and Muhammad Adib managed to pump up the hype and enthusiasm to the event despite the early hours. A warming up session was done by some instructors from Fitness First before the flag off to make sure that no one gets muscle cramps or spasm after the jog.
Monija and Muhammad Adib
The main highlight of this year’s Jog for Hope is none other than Miss Universe Malaysia 2011, Ms. Deborah Henry. Perhaps, it is her beauty and fame that attracted majority of the people, especially Taylor’s students to attend the event. Once a Taylor’s student herself, the friendly and cheerful lady was very happy to be invited as one of the VIPs on that day. All the photographers were hooked to their camera and tried to snap as many photos of her as possible. The students who got the opportunity to interview her could not stop smiling the whole day. I believe it was a life time experience for some of them. There was also a lucky draw on that day which offered a lunch date with Deborah Henry as the prize.
Ms. Henry taking photos with our students.
BY MUHAMMAD AQWA ALIF BIN JASMI