A line-up of notable national athletes kicked off the year’s first charity run at a launch event at SAFRA Toa Payoh’s EnergyOne gym. Led by national marathoner Mok Ying Ren, these athletes marked the commencement of the 3M Team Futuro Challenge, encouraging participants to run at least 2,000km from 20 Jan to 4 Feb. Achieving this target would help raise $30,000 worth of Futuro-brand products for under-reached individuals and community groups.
The main sponsor for the challenge, 3M, has braces and supports for muscle groups and joints, and compression legwear among its Futuro products. At the launch held on 19 Jan, Mok was joined by national tennis player Shaheed Alam, national badminton player Ren-ne Ong, and Alvinia Ow Yong, a 3M employee, SEA Games silver medallist and national women’s Rugby 7s team member. They ran a distance of 5km each on designated treadmills at EnergyOne gym to help raise the first $10,000 of the in-kind sponsorship target. “If you believe in giving back to the larger sporting community, [this challenge] is an opportunity to ‘run the talk’,” said Mok, the national 5km record holder.
“This is a commitment to social causes; a way for us to get off our couches and start running, as well as give back to charity together.” In all, four EnergyOne gyms at SAFRA Toa Payoh, SAFRA Punggol, SAFRA Tampines and SAFRA Jurong welcomed visitors from 20 to 28 Jan to run on designated treadmills and log their distances. Thereafter, from 29 Jan to 4 Feb, participants downloaded the ActiveSG app onto their mobile devices before running or walking the distances they wished to contribute. For every 500km accumulated within the challenge dates, $5,000 worth of Futuro products were pledged from the remaining $20,000 of in-kind sponsorship from 3M.
By the end of the challenge, a total of 1,828 participants had collectively clocked up an impressive 12,700km. Claire Chiang, 3M’s general manager of its Consumer Business Group, said that the challenge was a great way for the company to “expand its public outreach”. She added that its Futuro brand strongly aligned with that of EnergyOne and SAFRA, and that it made sense for all parties to be partners on this challenge. “We felt this was a great way to contribute to charity – not simply through a donation, but in a more meaningful way by getting people to run together and help promote an active lifestyle in Singapore.”
