If you go to get your tyres looked at this month, don’t be surprised if you face a whole lot of healthy facial hair growth in the process.
Beaudesert Tyre Store is doing Movember for the first time, to raise funds and awareness for men’s mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer.
All money raised goes straight to Movember, a leading men’s health charity which started in 2003 in Australia and has grown to become a global movement.
Beaudesert Tyre Store Assistant Manager Tom Harper is leading the charge, baring his upper lip, cheeks and chin for the first time in five and a half years to start clean shaven.
“One of the reasons I thought of it is men’s mental health. I know quite a few guys and they have a lot of problems talking about their stuff and they just bottle it up. It’s not good – they need to be able to talk about it,” he said.
Mr Harper and six colleagues across their Brisbane Street and Telemon Street workshops are doing Movember.
Mr Harper joked his wife Shinade was still adjusting to him being clean shaven.
“it’s taken her a little bit of time – she goes, ‘it’s prickly, it’s scratchy, I don’t like it’,” he said.
“Downtown I bumped into a bloke, and we got talking for a good five or 10 years before he realised who I was, without my facial hair, and another one downtown who asked me if my brother works here and I said, ‘no, it’s actually me’.”
“A couple of the other guys in the shop shaved all their facial hair off too, so their partners have had to adjust to it as well.”
He encouraged people to support their efforts to help improve men’s health outcomes.
“It’s going towards a good cause; you’ve got to keep the fellas going,” he said.
Beaudesert Tyre Store has put QR codes at their front counter and front door, linking directly to the fundraising website so customers can get behind the cause.
To donate, visit https://movember.com/m/14773860?mc=1
