The organizers of “CoverYour Chin for Charity 2016” held their first meeting recently to assess their progress with this year’s event and to make plans for the grand party to announce the winners that will be held on Saturday, January 16,2016 at the Waterfowl Festival building on Harrison Street in Easton.
“There is still time for men with existing beards to sign up,” said Adam Theeke of Easton who, along with Joel Shilliday of Easton and Andrew Southworth of Cordova founded the event in 2013. “We have a new category of ‘existing beards’ this year, and people can still sign up to participate in that category. We want to break our records for the number of participants, the number of sponsors, and the amount of funds we raise this year.”
Theeke also explained the motivation for the event, “If you are going to grow a beard, you may as well do it for a good reason. The first year we raised enough money that we wanted to do this every year, and we want to raise more money each year — for our first two years we raised a total of $20,000, so the bar is set high.”
This year the four local charities that will benefit from the funds raised are Character Counts – MidShore, the Veterans Fund Program at the Mental Health Association in Talbot County, Pet Pantries, and the CritchlowAdkins Children’s Centers.
People who want to support the event and its charities should go to the Web site (coveryourchin.com) to sign up as a contestant (if you have an existing beard), to donate, or to become a sponsor.
Contestants — except for those in the existing beard category, who can sign up at any time — started the facial hair growing contest clean shaven on October 16 and have until January 16, 2016 to grow and shape their facial hair into a winner. Donors go to the Cover Your Chin Web site and choose a donation level; they also have the option of choosing a charity and a contestant to support. Each contribution earns a ticket to the awards party (January 16th, 2016) that will feature beer and wine, appetizers, a silent auction, and music by DJ Erik “Groundhog” Higgins.
The categories that will be awarded prizes are for Best Overall Beard, Best Partial Beard, Best Moustache, and – new this year — Best Existing Beard. There also will be a Grand Prize awarded to the contestant who has brought in the most money in his name.
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