The Tribune

By DANA SMITH dsmith@tribunemedia.net MARIO'S Bowling and Family Entertainment Palace will be hosting its second annual "Mario's and Big O's Charity fun/run/walk/skate" on the last day of this month, in support of the Bahamas Crisis Centre. The initiative allows participants to walk, run, or even skate a 6.5 mile route after donating a $15 entrance fee with all the proceeds going to the centre. Announcing the event yesterday at Mario's, sales and marketing manager Gregory Wilkinson said the run/walk/skate is part of the company's on-going effort to "give something back to the community every year". "We found that the Bahamas Crisis Centre was most suitable (this year) given everything that's happening in our community with crime and the economy - people are very emotionally stressed and we assume that they are all going to be turning to the Bahamas Crisis Centre this year," he said. Mr Wilkinson pointed out the crisis centre no longer provides aid only to women, but now offers their aid to anyone who needs it. "People are very stressed out and it's really affecting the family in a very negative way... It's just really everybody in society, because there are men and women and children - everybody's hurt and we can't find a better cause to take on at this time," he said. A representative of the centre, Sandra Dean Patterson, thanked Mario's for choosing the centre as the benefactor of this year's initiative. "We're very grateful for Mario's to think of us and make us the recipient of their energy on the 31st," she said. "The Crisis Centre is a real oasis, refuge, for persons who hurt and there are a lot hurting people in Nassau. Hurting in all kinds of ways whether it's as a result of physical violence, sexual assault, child abuse, incest, psychological assault... and we provide that escape, that refuge for persons, but in order to do that we need the corporate community to help us and so we're really grateful to Mario's for thinking of us." The Bahamas Crisis centre provides Bahamians with abuse therapy assistance including a 24-hour hotline service and individual and group counselling for physical and sexual abuse victims. Also speaking at the event were Shavaugn Blades from Bahamas Road Masters and Mario's owner and PLP Tall Pines candidate, Leslie Miller. The event will kick off at 6am on March 31 and participants are asked to call 326-8012 to register. The route starts at Mario's then heads west on Tonique Williams-Darling Highway to Prospect Ridge, left on Skyline Drive to Bay Street, east on Bay Street and then right on to Prospect Ridge, and back to Mario's.