Stuart Anderson

I am fundraising for the World's Greatest Shave. Please consider donating to my campaign!

I am participating in the World's Greatest Shave for the second time, and starting my first full campaign, to raise support with the goal to completely shave my head during World's Greatest Shave month in March 2025!  This December is also my 30th birthday, and as a way to mark this milestone I have decided to do what I can to contribute to a great cause that I have always wanted to do more to support. I am kicking off My World's Greatest Shave campaign by making a special effort on the 16th of December, and the days leading up to it to raising money and awareness for the cause.

For my part I will be dedicating the day to going around my hometown of Albury-Wodonga, talking to people about the cause, handing out home-made information booklets, and raising donations. I would love to raise as much as I can, so please consider contributing to the campaign if you are able to!

For more information on why I am participating this year and my relationship to the World’s Greatest Shave, here is my story:

IT ALL BEGAN WITH THE CHINS

Ever since I was very young I have wanted to do the World’s Greatest Shave. I don’t think I had a good idea of exactly what it is, all I knew was that it’s to help sick people with cancer, and that it seemed like a fun way to do that. The famous chins was a great marketing approach, and it really worked for me at an age where I was largely clueless about the broader picture of the cause.

But as the years went by I never ended up doing it. Maybe I never felt comfortable enough to change myself in what feels like a big way? Or maybe I wasn’t confident enough to try and raise money for something? But what is most likely though is that I got busier as I got older and didn’t really think about it, aside from the occasional pang of recognition and guilt I would feel when I saw an ad or something that reminded me of the World’s Greatest Shave.

A CALL TO ACTION

Now I’m 29 years old and this year I going to be 30. And for the first time in years, I really started thinking about the World’s Greatest Shave again a couple of years ago.

To be completely honest, I was actually thinking about my own hair, at least to begin with. Here I was in my late 20’s, and after some personal health issues of my own, I had missed a lot of what I thought to be life and concerned about how I could catch back up, was very self-conscious about my hair as a significant aspect of my youth, as I understand many men go through a similar thing at that age. At around this time I once heard someone say, ‘everyone should know what what their bare head looks like at least once, before they go bald’, in regards to the idea of making a choice, and it resonated with me. I started to consider the idea of shaving my head in order to sort of take control of the situation before it happened to me. And for the first time in a while I thought about the World’s Greatest Shave again and thought seriously about participating perhaps the first time ever.

A SLIGHT BRUSH WITH CANCER, AND A NEW UNDERSTANDING

But that’s not exactly what has prompted me to start this campaign now. Months later as I was toying with the idea of setting a date and starting a WGS campaign but never doing so, I had a brief, and ultimately trivial, but very scary experience with cancer myself. Due to my as then undiagnosed gut health issues, my doctor suggested that I do a pet scan to check for a neuroendocrine tumour; a type of cancer. This turned out to be a relatively routine exercise to rule out a less than 1 percent chance of something, but still, actually having the term referring to me scared the hell out of me - as well as the procedures of the scan itself, and the days waiting for results after - and I spent the week leading up to my scan thinking about my life, about dying, and honestly kind of freaking out.

But I also learned more that week about cancer than I ever had before, including watching and reading about people’s stories, perhaps as a way to prepare myself. Fortunately the results came back negative, and I felt a bit silly about worrying so much as I returned to my life. Months later I was worrying about more benign things like my hair again, and thought about the world’s greatest shave once more. This is the first time that I actually did something more than think about the idea of it, and I went to the website to find out how I could take action. Somewhat embarrassingly I admit, this is the first time that I learned that the World’s Greatest Shave is specifically to support people with leukaemia, lymphoma, and myeloma; all types of blood cancer.

WHAT DOES THE WORLD’S GREATEST SHAVE DO, AND HOW DO DONATIONS HELP?

For those like me, who knew of the campaign but not many of the details; The World’s Greatest Shave was started by the Leukemia Foundation in 1998, and has grown to become one of Australia’s most well-loved and legendary fundraising campaigns. The campaign has raised over $300 million to help fund blood cancer research and expert support since 1998.

The World’s Greatest Shave describes itself as:

“One of Australia's most trusted charities, made up of patients, carers, healthcare professionals, researchers, specialists, and an army of supporters like our legendary World's Greatest Shave family. We offer life-changing support, fund leading-edge research and campaign for change alongside our community.

Each March, thousands of Australians make it their mission to help beat blood cancer by getting sponsored to shave, colour or cut their hair. Some have a personal connection to cancer, while others take part simply to have fun, challenge themselves or do something for a good cause.

Our expert Blood Cancer Support Coordinators provide information, practical support, and emotional care, helping families navigate the roller coaster of blood cancer. We keep families together when they need each other most, with Leukemia Foundation accommodation close to hospitals. And we help families meet basic costs like putting food on the table, covering rent, or paying bills. Because we want people not just to survive blood cancer, but to thrive.”

LEUKAEMIA

Leukaemia will always be a word that elicits a strong response in me, and it's true what is often said about cancer; that everyone knows at least one person that has been affected by it. For me, that person is a friend named Aden. When I was a kid my younger brother had a close friend named Aden, and Aden had leukemia. I remember aspects related to this would come up fairly frequently; Aden needing to take his meds when sleeping over or getting picked up to go home early, my brother visiting him in his many visits to hospital, and though I wasn’t personally involved, it was my first experience around cancer. I always admired Aden’s strength and character at that time, and I’m happy to say that he has been in remission for 10 years now, and has been living a healthy and full life now.

But the word still hit me like a ton of bricks and I thought about so many people experiencing the same challenges as Aden did, as well the stories I have since heard and people, friends and family, I have known who have had experiences with cancer.

And I also thought about about how just the concept of having cancer affected me, and the fire that was truly lit inside of me to act on it.

MY FIRST CAMPAIGN

Now, perhaps it shouldn't have taken for me to personally be affected by this to take action on a cause I seemingly care for. I thought so, and when I tried to put into words why I was do the world’s greatest shave for my first campaign’s bio, I had a lot of difficulty doing so. And that kept me from putting the page up and raising any money for another good while. My goal was to raise some money for the cause and shave my head on the official WGS day in march of 2024, and I did grow my hair out pretty long for a while, but as the day approached I hadn’t put my page up or raised any donations. And I decided that continuing to grow my hair much longer wasn’t practical, let alone until next march, and used the info on the wgs website to find a different way that my hair could be used.

I then put up my bio and campaign as it was, donated $35 myself, and made a haircut appointment at Style&Co. in Bairnsdale where they helped cut my hair probably the shortest it’s ever been, and collect clippings to donate for floating booms https://www.worldsgreatestshave.com/fundraising-tips#hair-donate

While there I had a very good chat with the person who cut my hair and helped with the collection who had his own experience with cancer through his father. It was clear to me then that everybody seems to have some connection with cancer, and it really lit the fire back in me to do the campaign again. That was back in April, and since then, when I remember to I’ve been trying again to decide what to write in the bio for my second campaign so that I can go back to ___ and talk to that hairdresser and his colleagues about donations, as I had promised him.

TURNING 30 & A NEW CAMPAIGN

And now it is months later and I’ll admit, I’m thinking about the shave for different reasons. My 30th birthday is less than a week away and I’m not sure what that means for me. One thing I know is that it means I’m reaching the next major milestone in getting older, and that I will no longer be able to think about the time I have to do the things I wanted to do in my 20’s, the idea of which I still hold onto even now; though it is obviously barely the case anymore. And I’m thinking about my youth, and I’m thinking about my hair again. And that my hair is getting longer and difficult to make presentable once more, and how do I want to be when I reach that milestone?

So now I am starting a campaign to raise donations for The World’s Greatest Shave in which I will continue to grow my hair and raise donations until until World’s Greatest Shave month in March next year. As part of this campaign I have also decided to dedicate my 30th birthday, which is the 16th of December of this year, to this great cause with the aim to spend the entire day raising as much money as I can, and for my part, I will be going around my hometown of Albury-Wodonga and talking to people about donations in person.

THIS IS WHY I AM CAMPAIGNING

Some of my reasons for doing this are less altruistic than others, and that’s partly why it’s been so difficult for me to put into this message into words that I am confident about and feel are honest. But I also think that most people have several reasons for doing things, even more selfless things, and that’s ok.

What is important is that a good cause is being supported and the people who need it are getting help. As well as my feelings on the challenges around having cancer, I also think about the primary reason behind the world’s greatest shave of providing wigs to people with cancer who may have lost their hair. The idea of losing my own hair through far more gradual and natural means has definitely affected me, and I feel so much for those who may have been affected similarly a a result of much more sudden and unpleasant circumstances on top of all the other challenges that cancer can bring.

EVENTS & WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story, and my best attempt at explaining why I am campaigning to do the world’s greatest shave this year. As I mentioned, it can be difficult to know exactly why you want to contribute to something, and often there are several reasons, but what matters most is that you are helping people in need by doing so. If you would like to support my World’s Greatest Shave campaign share this story with others who might be interested or able to contribute, and if you can, please consider donating.

For my birthday effort I’d love to raise as much as I can for this campaign to mark my 30th, and would be extremely appreciative of anything you can give or do to help on the 16th of December. So definitely donate if you can, and tell all your friends, family, workmates, casual acquaintances, enemies, those guys you knew in highschool, team mates, people who you haven't seen much since they have moved overseas (anyone you can think of really) and help me celebrate turning 30 by doing something bigger than myself!

As for the shave itself next year, please feel free to come and participate and watch me finally get my head shaved on the 24th of March 2025! It would be amazing to fulfill this goal of mine after so many years, to face a part of myself - and perhaps for many others too - that is confronting head on. And of course, it would be an honor to do my part in contributing to this hugely important and impactful cause, and I’d love to share it with the people who helped make it happen.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME. I LOOK FORWARD TO GETTING TO WORK ON THIS CAMPAIGN AND MEETING YOU ALL

I will update this page with info on plans and the venue as I work the details out: