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Legs for Literacy in Moncton draws 3,000 participants

Legs for Literacy in Moncton draws 3,000 participants

More than 3,000 runners and walkers took part in the Legs for Literacy race Sunday morning.

The popular annual event includes a marathon, a half–marathon, a 10 kilometre and a five kilometre race, which wound through the streets of downtown Moncton and Dieppe.

Race director Susan Edgett believes part of the success of the event is that all of the money raised goes to support literacy in southeastern New Brunswick.

"We are a registered charity and ... we're raising a lot of money," Edgett told Information Morning Moncton.

"People like that about races that they go to, they want to have that good feeling that they're contributing."

Edgett also credits the many volunteers for keeping Legs for Literacy going for 17 years.

"A lot of our participants say we have great volunteers — they love it that we have so many volunteers out on the route, they enjoy the experience, they really like to come here," Edgett said.

​"We need people yelling and screaming and saying, 'Go, go, go — you can do it!' because they are at the 32-kilometre mark when they leave there. The last 10 kilometres are tough in a marathon so any bit of encouragement is well-appreciated by the participants."

Edgett expects this year's event will raise close to $90,000 for literacy programs. In total more than $500,000 has been raised since 2000.

Main Street, between Westmorland Street and Assomption Boulevard, and Mechanic Street, between Main Street and Assomption Boulevard, were completely closed to traffic between 6 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.

There were many other closures and partial closures of downtown streets on Sunday between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m.