Students grow facial hair for Cancer research

It started out as a discussion over dinner about the inability of the average guy to grow a mustache and ended in a five week fund raiser. Starting July 1, five kinesiology graduate students and their adviser Joel Stager are asking for donations of a dollar a week for five weeks to raise money for the IU Cancer Center.\n"We were all joking about what it would take for us to grow one," graduate student Josh White said. "Instead of doing it on a dare, we decided to raise money for a good cause."\nA number of the participants have had close family members passed away from cancer. White's mother died from the disease five years ago.\nGraduate student Brian Wright also lost his mother to cancer, and is participating in the fundraiser which has been named "Staches for Cancer." He said he thinks his mother would definitely laugh.\n"My mom once painted one on my dad with makeup to see if it would look good," Wright said. "It didn't."\nThough neither Wright nor White think a mustache will look good, both said they are pretty sure they will make it the full five weeks.\n"It won't bother me that much, but I do think I'll look pretty goofy," White said. \nWright said he is actually excited about growing the facial hair, but added because he is engaged his situation might be different from some of the other participants.\n"I don't have to worry bout picking up women," he said. "It might affect the other's ability to date. But who knows, if it works out well they will probably end up keeping them."\nThe group has already surpassed their original goal of 500 dollars of pledges. The money they raise will go toward funding pilot research projects at the IU Cancer Center.\nThe IU Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in the state of Indiana and one of 60 elite cancer centers in the country. The Center is best known for the development of the cure for testicular cancer by Dr. Larry Einhorn, who also treated Lance Armstrong.\nAmber Senseny, development officer at the Center, said pilot projects are much like pilot television shows in that they test promising ideas in order to determine if they are worth further funding.\n"Doing major scientific cancer research projects costs hundreds of thousands of dollars," Senseny said. "If we didn't do pilot projects, we might spend money on a project that isn't very promising."\nSenseny also said the clever idea of growing mustaches will cause people to ask a lot of questions and hopefully generate more gifts.\n"I work with about 50 fundraising events each year," she said. "This definitely gets the most unique award."\n'Staches for Cancer participants invite anyone who would like to donate or grow a mustache to contact White at jocwhite@indiana.edu and visit the Web site http://mypage.iu.edu/~jocwhite/staches.htm.