Had the opportunity to participate in one of the most fun company initiatives ever – The Beard Off.
This is an annual event at e-Dialog to raise money for breast cancer. They have been doing this for many years and it is highly anticipated by all employees. The rules are quite simple – For those that participate, you start growing your beard in late October and the event concludes with beard participant speeches at the company’s annual Thanksgiving luncheon. The winner is chosen based on the quality/humor/entertainment value of their speeches.
There is incredible creativity involved in both the fund raising and the beard speeches. As for raising the cash, each participant is given a small jar and all employees are welcome to contribute to the “cause”. Some of the participants gave away Celtics tickets, gift cards, weekends away, sold jewelry, went around to local pubs (Double the benefit) or just shamelessly groveled to raise cash for this great cause.
The speeches were amazing. We had powerpoint presentations from Mike S. and Scotty V. One on the history of family beards from Mike (His mom has a really nice mustache :)) and the other on Scotty’s BBG (Beard Body Guard). Some prepared lengthy and very entertaining speeches, Brendan R. as an example – He believes he is Bruce Springsteen‘s son (There is a slight resemblance, but I mean ever so slight).
Jonathan P. did a great speech about how only real men grow beards. Don’t remember what Dan M. talked about but it must have been good. Bret W. did an awesome Top 10 (His wife is very happy this is over). Eric S., our Beard Leader, did his best to campaign for winning by just begging for votes. The Webman actually did the song “My Beard” after the classic Temptations hit. Hey, you just never know. Eric S. suggested that I stick to blogging. I agree 🙂
After this epic battle, we used Survey Monkey to vote for the winner. And our winner this year was Mike “The Beard” Lancaster. Mike comes from a long line of Beardo’s and can actually grow a full beard in about 12 hours (I may be exaggerating a bit but not by much). Not only did Mike win, but this unique group of BeardMen raised $4,100 for breast cancer. Well done indeed.
A great event for a great cause. Congratulations to all the participants and to the employees of e-Dialog for their support and contributions. And most importantly, a huge thanks to Anne S. for her passion, commitment and amazing story of strength and perseverance.
And now in honor of Brendan R. we end with a song about Bruce and his Mom:
Webman
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