Walkers, runners, and even crawlers of all ages and abilities are invited to participate in the 11th annual Almonte General Hospital (AGH) Run/Walk for Women’s and Newborn Health, sponsored by Canadian Tire (Carleton Place), on Saturday, June 8. 

The morning will feature fun warm up activities, children’s entertainment and games, pre and post run/walk food and refreshments. Everything gets underway at 8 a.m. behind the hospital and manor on Spring Street in Almonte.

Incredible prizes will be awarded to participants that fundraise in support of the event. The top fundraising individuals, families and teams are all eligible to win prizes, as is everyone that collects at least $50 in pledges. For every $50 collected, participants get a ballot to win prizes including Bluesfest passes to see Maroon 5 Sunday, July 7. Other prizes include an outdoor pizza oven, Puppets Up passes, tickets for the Carp Fair and gift certificates for Vamos.

“We’ve got some really amazing prizes, including Maroon 5 tickets,” AGH Run/Walk organizing committee chair Julie Munro said. “Registration covers the cost of staging the event. We need participants to collect pledges for this event to be a success, and we reward them with some cool prizes. When participants collect pledges, that’s when our patients are the big winners. Funding the Fetal Heart Monitoring System for our incredible Birthing Unit is our goal this year.”

Funds raised this year are earmarked to help fund a fetal monitoring system for the AGH Hospital Birthing Unit. The AGH Birthing Unit, supported by obstetricians, family physicians, nurses, midwives and support staff delivers approximately 400 babies a year including an incredible baby boom last March. Having state-of-the-art equipment and facilities is vital for our newborns and mothers.

Registration, which only covers the cost of presenting the event, is $50 for an individual or $150 for a family or team (any combination of six people).  Additional family or team members are $50 per person.

Registration fees and partnership dollars offset the costs of staging the event including timing, event logistics, marketing, online platform fees, volunteer refreshments and participant giveaways. Collecting pledges drives the success of the annual fundraiser.  All participants are encouraged to collect or donate a minimum of $50. Fundraising is made easy through the new registration site: https://aghfvmf.givecloud.co/.

Participants can choose from one of two distances and register to be timed or not:

• 3 km Family Fun (Walk or Run) (Untimed)
• 3 km Walk or Run (Timed)
• 5 km Walk or Run (Timed)

New this year will be a Baby Race. Crawling to the finish line (or to a waiting parent), will be so much fun for everyone involved.

Once registered, participants can set up an individual, family or team fundraising page and easily share it through email or social media. All donations collected are eligible for a charitable tax receipt.

Since its inception, participants, donors, partners and volunteers, have raised more than $300,000 which has allowed the Hospital to fund priority clinical equipment for the hospital’s birthing unit and women’s health care. AGH’s birthing unit serves families from up and down the Ottawa River, as well as Carleton Place and West Carleton.