The T&T De­fence Force host­ed its first Char­i­ty 5K Run/Walk last Sat­ur­day at the De­fence Force Re­serves Head­quar­ters at Tuck­er Val­ley, Ch­aguara­mas.

The theme for the char­i­ty run was “Leav­ing No Woman Be­hind" which was an­oth­er event of the Chief of De­fence Staff Mil­i­tary Women’s Ini­tia­tive.

Over 350 per­sons par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 5K Run/Walk event.

The Chief of De­fence Staff Mil­i­tary Women’s Ini­tia­tive will for­mal­ly rec­og­nize 40 years of women in ser­vice in the TTDF.

The Pres­i­dent Her Ex­cel­len­cy, Paula Mae-Weekes, Com­man­der-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was in at­ten­dance to fire the race horn to prompt­ly start the race at 6.30 am.

Chief Jus­tice, Jus­tice Ivor Archie, the Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Sham­fa Cud­joe and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty were all in at­ten­dance at the char­i­ty event.

Race par­tic­i­pants be­gan the 5K Run/Walk at the pavil­ion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force Re­serves (TTD­FR) Camp and pro­ceed­ed counter-clock­wise around the Ch­aguara­mas Golf Course road and re­turned to the TTD­FR pavil­ion to fin­ish the race.

The first over­all male to fin­ish the 5K race was Li­onel D'An­drade in a time of 17:09 and the first over­all fe­male was Jan­ice Good­ing in a time of 23:42.

Prizes for the race were al­so pre­sent­ed to the youngest male and fe­male par­tic­i­pants, the el­dest male and fe­male par­tic­i­pants and the largest reg­is­tered group.

The pro­ceeds from the char­i­ty event will go to the Shel­ter for Bat­tered Women and Chil­dren.