Movember |

Movember 14, 2013

Day 14 and the Mo’s are loud and proud in the hallways of Lower Canada College. This year’s LCC Stash team, which is comprised of 44 current students, teachers and alum, has raised over $6500 since Movember 1. During the remaining 16 days of this month, the team hopes to surpass the success of last year’s team which finished first in the country raising more money than any other high school in Canada!

As the stashes start to settle in and as the month slowly progresses, donations are coming in more and more quickly. The current team leader for fundraising is Philip Dubrofsky, who has raised an impressive $1,635. For the first time since its launch at LCC, 29 current grade 11 girls have volunteered to be Mo Sistas. The Mo Sistas have volunteered to campaign manage for the boys, raise a minimum of $20 each and most importantly sell the Movember memorabilia which includes Tech Tacts and thin black stash gloves. As a fun bonus, the LCC Stash committee has implemented a new weekly award for the best Stash of the Week. Congratulations to Thomas Boucher-Charest who was this week’s recipient of the award.

At the end of each week, a group photo is taken with all of the Mo Bros and Sistas. Each photo demonstrates a steady improvement of stash growth from the previous week. Looking forward to the remaining 16 days of the month, we can only hope and nonetheless expect great results from such a dedicated group of young men and women who have united in the cause of putting an end to prostate cancer. – Matthew Kaspy ’14 (Student Leader – Movember 2013)

LCC’s Mark Capombassis ’88 is our guest blogger. He shares how he, and subsequently LCC, got involved with Movember.

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I got involved with Movember because it raises money for men’s cancer. My father, Panos Capombassis, died of cancer: it was in his memory that I first chose to get involved. I created my first Movember team in 2011, and we raised over $120,000 with a mere six-member team. We were the #1 team worldwide (of 10 people or less) for funds raised…and we had fun doing it.

After the success of the 2011 campaign I wanted to get more involved with Movember, so I joined the Montreal Board of Directors in 2012. My goal in 2012 is to help create more teams and inspire more people to participate in this important initiative.

I was aware that Movember does a great job getting university students involved, but I had never heard of the organization doing anything specifically with high schools. I know that when I was in high school, my friends and I would have definitely grown moustaches if we had been given the permission to do so! We would have done it for the fun of it as well for the cause. With that in mind, I thought “let’s get my old high school involved.”

I had initially approached LCC to participate in 2011, but there was not enough time to assemble a team, so Kirk LLano (Director of Philanthropy and Alumni Relations) and I decided to talk about the possibility again mid-2012. Kirk gave me the go ahead to come into the school and talk to the grade 11 boys after lunch one day. With Kirk’s support and enthusiasm, he has created a movement within the school to get the kids signed up. To date LCC Stash is up to 48 people on the team and that is far more than I ever could have hoped for in our first year.

In addition to LCC’s involvement I have created a Canadian High School Network where another 20 high schools from across Canada have joined. Together we will show the capacity this demographic has in raising awareness and funds for a great cause.

My Movember goals for 2012 have been as follows:

Continue my personal efforts to raise awareness in honour of my father
Create a Movember LCC team
Create a Movember Canadian High School Network
Use the success of our Canadian High School Network to encourage high schools worldwide to get involved in Movember

I’m well on my way. — Mark Capombassis ’88

Tag Archives: Movember

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