- September 18, 2024
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Ormond Beach resident Bill Fletcher's annual Shave for the Brave fundraising initiative is starting soon, and he's hoping this year, he'll be able to raise $100,000 to help families with children diagnosed with cancer.
Fletcher — a local businessman who owns the Fletcher's Irish Pub locations in Ormond Beach and Holly Hill — will kick off the fifth annual fundraiser on Oct. 5. The fundraiser, held in partnership with Proper Barber Co., invites the community to join teams and take part in several events or donate on the day of the final event, Dec. 15, to shave their beards.
The fundraiser benefits the Live Like Cameron Foundation, a Palm Coast-based nonprofit created in the memory of 10-year-old Cameron Fulling, who died in 2017, seven years after he was diagnosed with brain cancer.
The foundation provides financial assistance and care packages to families with children who have cancer. Shave for the Brave has been able to raise over $200,000 for the Live Like Cameron Foundation since its inception. It's an outcome he said he never anticipated, having raised $18,000 in his first Shave for the Brave fundraiser in 2020. In both 2022 and 2023, the fundraiser raised over $75,000.
"I thought it would be a nice hobby here and there, to put things together and give back," Fletcher said. "The community support, with sponsors and local people, has just been overwhelming, to where it's my fiduciary responsibility to try to make it as good as possible and give back as much as we can."
Fletcher was diagnosed with abdominal cancer in 2019. October will mark his fifth year in remission.
"It was my way to try to figure out how to take my negative experience and make it positive," Fletcher said.
New to this year's initiative is a partnership with Ormond Beach MainStreet. The fundraiser will host six total events, including the Oct. 5 kickoff party — a pub crawl on Nov. 17, a classic car show on Nov. 23, a Black Sheep concert on Nov. 29, a "bike and bar" on Dec. 8, and finally, the shaving on Dec. 15.
He didn't shave his beard during last year's fundraiser, hoping to celebrate his five years of remission with the shaving of a two-year-old beard at his fifth annual event.
"I gotta say, two years is a challenge. Maintaining a beard in a respectable way, there's a lot of maintenance to it," Fletcher said with a laugh. "I'm ready for Dec. 15, so I can shed it and start again."
Visit https://runsignup.com/Race/Donate/FL/OrmondBeach/ShavefortheBraveChildrenBattlingCancer.
