Movember 2024: My Motivations and the Movember Movement

A charity for men's health issues

Mary Pat Campbell

Nov 06, 2024

Transcript

An audio introduction to my 2024 Movember fundraising: the background to Movember internationally, its focuses of prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health and suicide, and my personal motivation: my late husband Stu’s diagnosis with advanced prostate cancer in 2017 and his 7-year struggle with cancer.

picture from 2018, after Stu’s initial round of infusion chemo

My Movember fundraising links

Here are the places you can donate to the Movember Foundation, which supports men’s health, specifically focusing on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health:

Mary Pat Campbell’s MoSpace – a place to donate at Movember itself
My Movember Facebook fundraiser – my officially linked fundraiser, if this works better for you

And here’s a QR code if that works better for you:

Movember History: Wikipedia

Seven Nightly News aired a story in 1999 including a group of young men in Adelaide, South Australia who coined the term "Movember" and the idea of growing moustaches for charity throughout the month of November.^[16] In the news report, members of the Adelaide-based "Movember Committee" explained how they came up with the idea for Movember one night in the pub. The group started with 80 men from Adelaide and soon became a nationwide phenomenon. They also aimed to raise money for the RSPCA through selling T-shirts in what they termed "Growing whiskers for whiskers".^[16]
In 2004, an unrelated group in Melbourne organised an event where 30 men would grow a moustache for 30 days in order to raise awareness for prostate cancer and depression in men.^[17]^[18] Adam Garone, Travis Garone, Luke Slattery, and Justin (JC) Coughlin inspired 26 other friends with a desire to "bring back" the trend of growing moustaches, the movement was born. The next year, nearly 500 people raised over $40,000 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. At the time, it was the largest donation the PCFA had ever received. This group would later become the Movember Foundation charity. Three years after starting the Movember movement, the organization was granted official charity status in Australia.