60.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Mustaches for Kids marks its 10th anniversary
Group is raising money for children with cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering
Mustaches for Kids kicked off its annual fundraiser last month for children with cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the month-long initiative will lead to the ’Stache Bash at the Long Beach Hotel on Nov. 5, from 6 to 10 p.m. The event will feature raffles, live music, food and other activities.
Mustaches for Kids is a volunteer-run, national organization that supports children with cancer by having volunteers grow mustaches in order to generate donations for children’s charities. Friends Vinny Leis, Billy Kupferman, James Bogdan and Justin Fitzmartin launched the Long Beach chapter 10 years ago, and the group’s month-long event began with a “shave day,” where participants registered for the event with cleanly shaven faces.
More than 60 people are participating this year, and organizers say that the mustaches are meant to serve as a conversation starter and encourage people to donate to through the group’s website, www.m4kli.com. Participants are given buttons that read “Ask me about my mustache” and a donation website is set up for them when they register. The group’s next “check point” will be held at the Knights of Columbus on Oct. 30.
The Mustaches for Kids Fund was created by Memorial Sloan Kettering earlier this year to benefit various patient support programs in its Department of Pediatrics that are in need of additional funding. Specifically, the fund will help build the Teen and Young Adult Program, which addresses the emotional needs of patients between the ages of 16 and 28.
“This is our 10th year and we’re going to break more than half a million dollars that is donated to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center,” said Leis, a teacher at Baldwin High School. “This year, Memorial Sloan Kettering created an online fund in our name — it gives money directly to Mustaches for Kids through Sloan Kettering’s website.”
The group recently visited children at the hospital and, this year, Rockville Centre Lanes set up a miniature bowling alley for kids at the center.
“The hospital and staff allow us to come in, we play with kids and do fun activities,” Leis said. “We want to make sure that these kids can be just be kids and have fun.”
