Icilda Humes

The annual Women's Month bike rally is coming up this weekend. It's an event that has had increasing support and participation over the years because while it is not a race, many come out with the hopes taking home a trophy for being the youngest female rider, the oldest female rider, the largest team of females or the largest mixed group. In 2011, over eight hundred persons participated; some for fitness, health or simply to show support for gender issues. But there’s no doubt that the attractive prizes raffled at the finish line are also a major incentive. So the Women's Department gave News Five a peak at what participants can win on Saturday morning when the bike rally's take off in each district.

Icilda Humes, Director, Women's Department

"I think the level of prizes has reached a new high. We have a stove coming from Unicomer, which is the parent company for Courts and Tropigas; we have a Kindle Touch from Fultec, we have an HTC Snap from Smart, we have an android phone coming from Telemedia, a lot of cash prizes, different dinners and lunches and as treatments and jewelry, exercise equipment. I mean the list goes on and on. We have less than a hundred at this point but we've already gotten calls for us to come and pick up more so we certainly will reach that hundred mark which I think has become a tradition for the bike rally over the last few years. What we ask is that people come early. Registration starts at five but usually when we get out there at four-thirty, we usually have people already waiting there to register and that's really because the first fifty persons that register gets a free water bottle and this has become something that people really look forward to, the Women's Month water bottle. So if you come early and you’re one of the first fifty, you will certainly get a water bottle. But beside that, when you come we ask that you support the charity that we've chosen for this year's bike rally. What we've done over the past few years is that we've been trying to make the rally a little bit more meaningful and so we continue to select different charities and the charity selected this year is the pediatric unit initiative which is being promoted by the Special Envoy for Women and Children, Mrs. Kim Simpliss Barrow. So we really want to encourage people to come out, give a dollar or more even business places, we're asking that if you’re employees come out and ride that maybe you match that with a contribution to the cause. But even if you’re not able to give a contribution, you will still be able to participate in the ride, you will still be able to get a raffle ticket. We continue to invite groups and families and people who just socialize together to come out as a group to an activity that really promotes healthy lifestyles and gives you something to do in terms of good clean family entertainment. We continue to see this event growing, more families are coming out, more work families are coming out, community families are coming out so that is something that we really think has caught on. And we want to do more activities of this nature."

The rally leaves from the corner of the Western Highway and Western Avenue at six o’clock sharp and Humes emphasizes that they will be leaving on time.

Channel 7