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Garfield Gordon and Sheree Bryan emerged winners of the Ardenne Alumni Optima 5K Run/Walk on Sunday, February 2 as 465 persons finished the event.

The second staging of the Ardenne Alumni Optima 5K Run/Walk saw 825 persons registered as the school continued its push towards the J$64m target to build the Wellness Centre on the campus on Ardenne Road.

And it was fitting that an Ardenne past student emerged winner of the female section as Bryan of Trainfit outlasted the 213 opponents to win in 26:55 minutes ahead of Wolfpack’s Kaelyn Lawes (27:22) and Pacers’ Therese Saunders (27:37).

“For me, it meant a lot. It was a big deal,” she explained.

“While here at Ardenne, I spent a lot of time in the nurse’s office, so it’s good to know I can contribute to the school this way,” Bryan added.

Male winner Gordon of UCT Steppas, had to hold off the challenge of Kemar Leslie of PureLuv Running and Marvin Hamilton. Gordon won in 17:37, just ahead of Leslie with 17:57 and Hamilton in 17:58.

Gordon was a bit disappointed with his time caused by an unfortunate situation but grateful for the win.

“The race was not too bad but a marshal led us to the wrong route so I had to turn back but I am grateful that I won,” Gordon noted.

“It’s a good feeling for me to come out and support a great cause. These events are important to me as I use them as training,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Paula Sinclair of UCT Steppas won the 5K Walk ahead of Carlene Wallace of Dufflebody and Jullite Reeves of JPS.

Duwell Allen of Creation Foods was the male winner of the 5K Walk with second place going to Hassawney Roberts and Omroy Samuels of St Elizabeth Fire Brigade was third.

Hiitbox Fit was the Champion Team and Ardenne High School was the Champion School.

Esther Tyson, former principal of Ardenne High and current vice chairman of the organizing committee, was beaming from ear to ear with what she deemed a success as the journey to have the Centre ready by 2027 is on track.

“We are building the Ardenne Wellness Centre because we recognized the importance of giving support to our children with all the pressure from social media, our society and the world. There are so many challenges,” said Tyson.

“We are building the Wellness Centre and it will be at a cost of $64m and we are pushing for it and in 2027 Ardenne will be 100 years old and we hope by that time we will have that Wellness Centre up and running,” she added.

Tyson had high praises for all the support headed by the Alumni chapters in Toronto, Florida, New York, Canada and England and all of the people who came out today.

“We will be going at it again next year and also be doing other events to raise funds to give support to the Centre. Thank you and God bless you,” Tyson concluded.

Meanwhile, another past student, France-Roy Brown, a financial advisor at Guardian Life, donated $200,000 to the cause.

“Guardian Life is a proud sponsor of this event and for me, especially as a past student I am a proud representative to give this cheque,” said Brown.

The company loves the Alumni and what they are doing and to think that this will be an amazing part of the foundation and anything we can do to help we will try and out,” he added.