By: Victoria Miranda
The Assumption Men’s Lacrosse team participated in the popular social trend, No-Shave November. Members of the team grew out their facial hair in very different and unique ways, to show their support and help spread cancer awareness. As the month came to a close, the team shaved off their facial hair and ended up raising a good amount of money for a great cause.
No-Shave November is a month-long trend where participants avoid shaving their facial hair and cutting their hair in order to increase cancer awareness and raise funds to support cancer research, prevention and education. The growing hair and facial hair evokes conversations between people about the trend and why they’re doing it, which helps to spread awareness and educate people about cancer. The no shaving aspect of the trend and growing out hair is to embrace the hair that we have by letting it grow long and crazy, seeing as how most cancer patients lose their hair. The idea is to grow out your hair and instead of using money to get groomed, take that money and donate it to families in need. The organization says even if you don’t grow out your hair and facial hair, you can help support the foundation by donating money on the different fundraising pages.
The organization is putting all the money that they raise to good use, in that they are using the money towards “ground breaking research and providing free information and services to cancer patients and their caregivers” according the organization’s website. No-Shave November is working with several different foundations to achieve their mission, those including, St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital, Fight Colorectal Cancer, Prevent Cancer Foundation and The American Cancer Society. The organization donates 80% of donations equally to all of these foundations.
The lacrosse team was reached out to by an organization called the HEADstrong, a foundation run by former lacrosse players where lacrosse teams from all over can make a fundraising page to raise money and awareness for families who are battling cancer. HEADstrong likes to call their version of No-Shave November “Laxstache Madness”. The HEADstrong foundation claims that this year was a “record-breaking year for Lacrosse Mustache Madness”. Many colleges around the U.S. participated and raised a great amount of money for the cause. The top five schools whose lacrosse team participated and raised the most money were, HEADstrong Texas, University of Delaware Men’s Lacrosse, Cornell Men’s Lacrosse, Springfield College Men’s Lacrosse and Towson University Men’s Lacrosse.
Like these other schools, the Assumption lacrosse team took Laxstache Madness pretty seriously. The mustaches on the players ranged from a simple mustache to a mustache with handle bars, the team made and Instagram page to spread the word on what they were doing and show off the mustaches some of the players were sporting this November.
Senior, John Rankin said the team had fun participating in the trend, “We absolutely enjoyed participating in this because it raises money for a great cause and gave us an excuse to grow less than flattering mustaches and beards for a month.” Rankin also said that sophomore Derric Dell’Olio had the best mustache out of all the team members that participated.
The team had a goal of raising $1,000 over the course of the month and they came pretty close to reaching that goal. The team was just shy of their $1,000 goal, with raising a total of $844. Their fundraising page consisted of the different members of the team and how much each member raised throughout the month.Team member Ryan O’Connor raised the most money out of all the members on the team, raising a total of $309. Their page also explains why they participated in the trend and some facts about why they need help in raising money for the foundation.
Assumption Men’s Lacrosse, along with many other participants around the world were able to spark conversations between people about their continuously growing hair and facial hair to help spread awareness about cancer, raise money to help families battling cancer and raise money for cancer research and education. No-Shave November has been extremely successful over the past couple of years and it is highly likely this trend will continue to be successful in the years to come.
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