The Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association is hosting its annual Run for Bradford on Sept. 25 starting at 8 a.m. outside of the Bradford West Gwillimbury Library.
The run will benefit the Bradford Helping Hand Food Bank, with a fundraising goal of $10,000.
The run has been endorsed by several elected officials, including Mayor Rob Keffer who posted a video on social media to show his support.
“It gives me great pleasure to welcome back the Run for Bradford to our great town,” he said in the video. “I’d really like to thank the youth organization of AMJ for putting this on.
“The fundraising really goes to great causes that we have in our municipality. The run is always well organized, and I’d like to thank the Ahmadiyya Muslim community for hosting it and we look forward to seeing a lot of people out.”
Residents can enter the race in any of the following categories: 1K fun walk, 3K run, 5K run, and 10K run, with all registrants getting a complimentary Run for Bradford t-shirt. The fun walk is free while the runs will have a small fee.
“We’re confident by this weekend we’ll see a big increase in our registration numbers,” said Kashif Meer, chairman of the Run for Bradford. “Our volunteers have been dedicating their time on a daily basis to spread the message. There’s a lot of excitement and it’s coming through with the increase of registrations.”
Now in its 11th year, the initiative is returning after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We really wanted to get this going again this year and we’re confident we’ll have a good crowd out there,” said Meer. “We’re loving it, we have a lot of volunteers who are actively participating in making sure the message goes out to as large an audience as possible. We can see the feeling of excitement in everyone we’re reaching out to in the Bradford community. Everyone is excited because for the last two years we haven’t really gone out and haven’t been able to be involved actively in activities.”
Giving back to the community is a large part of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association's humanitarian initiative and given the increased need for support for food banks, fundraising for Helping Hand was an easy decision.
“Our community is heavily involved in Bradford, and we’ve partnered with the Bradford Food Bank to help them out,” said Meer. “We’ve collected a lot of food the last few years for the food bank, and they know us very well. Our main objective as part of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association is to help out noble causes. It’s one of our top priorities to help out the food bank, there’s such a need for it.”
With various local businesses sponsoring the run, there has been a lot of support for the food bank.
“When I reached out to around 50-plus businesses yesterday, about 90 per cent of them were willing to come forward and help the food bank,” Meer said. “It’s something that’s very important to the whole Bradford community.”
Register for the Run for Bradford here.
