A strong and exhausted Vikings player tackled someone on the Chicago Bears and my dad sighed. The game continued and a lengthy discussion of everyone’s fantasy football team developed.
As I began to tune out the names and stats of every Sunday football game, I told my mom that I was writing a story this week about No-Shave November. Somehow through the back and forth conversation about who’s team is better and what players needed to be traded, my cousin turned to me with piqued interest.
He rubbed his beard and began telling me how much he loved No-Shave November because it gave him a chance to fit in with everyone else who was trying to grow a beard. However, we both forgot to mention the real reason for putting down the razor this month.
The idea to grow out facial hair as a way to help raise cancer awareness caught fame in 2003 in Australia. This now widely popular November tradition called Movember began in a way that would make almost any man proud, friends talking over a couple of beers, said Adam Garone, former Movember CEO during a 2011 TED Talk.
This conversation led them to discuss fashion trends and how old styles always came back into the mainstream, all but one- the mustache. After discussing why a simple mustache never came back into style, the friends concluded that they would bring the mustache back.
Inspired by a friend’s mother who was fundraising for breast cancer, they decided to make their project into a campaign about men’s health and prostate cancer. 15 years later, Movember takes place in 20 countries and more than 5 million people have participated in the movement to help improve men’s health. The Movember Foundation helps men around the world who have prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental illness or other men’s health issues.
To participate in Movember, the foundation encourages men to: sign up to grow a mustache on their website, start growing, start conversations, and ask friends and family to support your mustache. The foundation hopes that participants mention the meaning behind their mustache and spread the word about Movember within their community, sports club, workplace and campus.
While the founders at Movember began to expand and increase in popularity, in 2009, No-Shave November was being reinvented and mobilizing participants through social media.
Members of the Chicagoland Hill family took the tradition and began to develop another way to utilize the month-long hair. Inspired by their late father, who passed away from colon cancer, the Hill children decided to use No-Shave November as a means to raise money for charity.
The process started on Facebook, asking followers to donate toward cancer research. The concept then expanded into growing awareness by letting our hair grow freely, no shave, no trim, and to embrace our hair for the many patients who lose their hair due to treatments. Instead of buying new razor heads, spending money on a trip to the barber’s or salon, the organization encourages people to donate the money toward cancer prevention, education and research, according to the No-Shave November website.
Men can grow a beard, cultivate a mustache and women can save some shower time and ditch the razor and let those legs grow naturally. To get involved, the organization promotes individuals to set up their own fundraising page, support someone else’s hairy journey and to donate the hair-maintenance expenses toward one of No-Shave November’s funded programs with the Prevent Cancer Foundation, Fight Colorectal Cancer, St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital or to make a general donation. This year, No-Shave November has raised over $1 million as of November 19th, with the Pasadena Police listed as number eight on the leaderboard, raising $5,100.
As November comes to its end this year, discuss with your friends and family who may be participating in Movember or No-Shave November about the message behind the hair. Use the saved bathroom time to read about cancer foundations and learn how you can help someone’s life.