JeansMarines official charity is the  Running and Reading Club Program of KidsFest Canada. This innovative program, directed by former Olympian and Canadian record holder in the Marathon, Silvia Ruegger, helps children in impoverished areas of Toronto and Hamilton get in shape through a program of running 2 hours a week, followed by a reading and writing adventure which improves their literacy skills. For more information on the program, log on to: www.kidsfestcanada.com

When you join JeansMarines, we encourage you to help raise funds for the Running and Reading Club, and to volunteer either as a runner or a reader.  There’s a long tradition in marathoning that many people use this race-of-a-lifetime to solicit pledges from their friends and colleagues for their favourite charity. For example, the London Marathon, the world’s largest, raises over 30 million pounds from its runners each year for literally hundreds of charities.