A staggering 105 students from Merewether High are participating in the World’s Greatest Shave next week, as the group hopes to raise $80,000 to help researchers find a cure for the devastating disease.
The World’s Greatest Shave fundraising event will take place at the Merewether High campus on Thursday March 24, and with just under a week to go, Year 12 Prefect and shave participant Thusanda Dewamitta said the school is just $13,000 off reaching their ambitious target.
“We’re currently sitting at around $67,000 dollars in total raised.”
“We were definitely worried about our target at the start … we were thinking ‘wow that such as big goal’, and we calculated that we’d have to raise $10,000 per week … but everyone has been really supportive so far, so it’s been great to see.”
If not participating in hair shaving, cutting or colouring activities on Shave Day, students have been supporting the cause through the school’s fundraising events, and by spreading awareness for the event within the wider community, Dewamitta said.
The leading prefect body, which is comprised of 20 students, has initiated multiple internal events to engage students, including a weekly ‘Friday Fundraiser’ initiative.
Among fundraisers the students have hosted in 2022 were a crazy sock day, sausage sizzle, bake sale, superhero day and a pizza day.
“Our Friday Fundraisers have raised a fair bit of money and it gets the school spirit up,” Dewamitta said.
The school is currently ranked number three in Australia for team donations, and Dewamitta said the student body hopes to land a spot in the top two by next week.
“Every year the goal is to beat the previous year’s amount raised – this year we have a goal of $80,000 to beat $78,000 from 2021.”
Dewamitta said the initiative is something that brings the school community together annually, and according to one staff member at Merewether High, the Greatest Shave has been a fixture on the schools calendar for more than 10 years.
“The first Year 12’s to begin this tradition knew someone in the school community was impacted by leukaemia,” Dewamitta said.
He said 2022’s Year 12 body had not been untouched from Leukemia either, with one student’s family member passing away from the disease.
“While anyone can be diagnosed with Leukemia at any age, most people diagnosed are between the ages of zero and 14.”
Every day, fifty people are diagnosed with blood cancer and another 15 lose their battle to the disease.
It’s a statistic the students are looking to change.
“World’s Greatest Shave is a good way for us to give back to the community in our final year of high school, and to generate a support network via the Leukemia foundation to provide resources and assistance for those impacted,” Dewamitta said.
Funds raised via the Leukemia Foundation’s World’s Greatest Shave initiative provides information for newly diagnosed patients as well as relief accommodation for families going through life- saving treatment, and also goes toward research to find a cure.
“Our biggest fund-raising focus at the moment is on upcoming Raffle for a Remedy which we’re counting on generating the most money for us to hit our goal soon.”
“It’s an online raffle that anyone in the community can get involved in and our prefect body has secured a variety of prizes valued at $6,000 through contacting a huge range of businesses locally.”
Tickets are five dollars and were a great way for the wider Hunter community to get involved, Dewamitta said.
“It’s a fun way to keep the fundraising momentum going up to our shave day on the 24th which is when we’re going to draw the raffle too.”
Among prizes available in the raffle is a signed Newcastle Knights jersey, Sanbah surfing lessons, Newcastle Golf Club vouchers and a 4 – person reservation for Cheval’s Restaurant at the Newcastle Jockey Club, valued at $600.
Dewamitta also encouraged local businesses to donate toward the school’s Raffle for a Remedy, which will be drawn on March 24.
“We want to build as much hype as we can in the community so the more people that know about it, the better,” he said.
Maia O’Connor