Peter Firestone is an unlikely hero. The organization that he co-founded with a few friends managed to raise over $4,000 last spring in just a few weeks for Compass House, a Buffalo-based charity that assists runaway and homeless youth. This year, his group is looking to double that number, with hopes of cracking ten grand in contributions. Firestone and his peers don’t sell candy bars door-to-door, or even dial number after number looking for donations. And though a tad unorthodox, their method for raising money is far from failing, and without argument, strays from the traditional concept of fundraising as we know it.

“We all agreed that the only thing Buffalo needed to become a real twenty-first century town was an old fashioned mustache-growing contest.” There is not an ounce of insincerity in Firestone’s words.

At age 28, the West Side resident is a student in the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work and also a co-founder of Buffalo Whiskerino, a non-profit organization that annually attempts to raise funds for charity by way of, you guessed it, mustache growing. After a successful inaugural attempt in the spring of 2008, Whiskerino is holding their second annual charity-driven competition this March.

“We were thinking, what can we do to get your workaday fellow, your Joe the Plumber, out of the winter doldrums and doing something that is both fun and a great for our community?” remarked Firestone. Last year the group reached membership of over 20 “growers,” men who vowed to grow their “Staches” all for the sake of bettering humanity. Like a walk-a-thon, each grower collects pledges from friends and family for participating in the event, with the contributions all going to charity.

“Some may consider it silly, odd, maybe even a little creepy,” remarks Rick Blane, 28, Firestone’s co-founder who makes a living as a Buffalo school teacher. Strangeness aide, Blane takes great pride in his contribution, and challenges “more people to take an active role in helping others.”

Buffalo Whiskerino may be a fresh thing in Buffalo, but is certainly nothing new. Similar organizations, some local, some national, have existed across the country for years. Beards For Cancer has run a comparable campaign since 2003, taking pledges for each day a group of University at Delaware students could go without shaving. Following a clean-shave day, a group of college students have been growing full beards for a year’s length and donating substantial pledges to the American Cancer Society.

Buffalo Whiskerino, while collecting pledges, operates on a slightly different structure. Their clean shave day, March 14 this year, requires all participates to shave everything “sideburn to sideburn,” as Firestone puts it. “You start absolutely from scratch,” he remarks, debunking the possibility of prepping your whiskers in the weeks prior. In the case of Buffalo Whiskerino, pledges are made not for each day shaving is refrained from, but solely for participating in the month long competition. Firestone claims the average donation is around $10 per pledge, with some people offering up to $100 to support a grower, with participants in the Buffalo contest coming all the way from Washington, D.C. to participate last year. After growing season is started, the group photographs all members each week to document progress, and every other week they have check-ups. By participating in the program, each contender agrees to shave everything on the face, sans mustache, at least once a week. While the rulebook isn’t too intense, Firestone stresses a few orders that are strongly enforced. “No goatees! No soul patches!” he demands. And according to the website, rule number seven specifically states, “No ‘Hitler’s,’ and the suspiciously similar ‘Chaplin’s,’” are allowed into the competition.

This year marks the second annual run of Buffalo Whiskerino, but along with Beards for Cancer, it is part of a much larger national trend of hair-raising charitable organizations that extend out of the northeast. Firestone claims that he first toyed with the idea of having a mustache-growing contest for charity after hearing about Mustaches for Kids from Emily Ng and Kevin O’Sullivan, UB grads and founders of the Nickel City Housing Co-op. Mustaches for Kids, a fund-raising group on the same principle of Whiskerino, has managed to rage $150,000 across North America since its inception in 1999.

While dozens of chapters of Mustaches for Kids exist across the continent, Buffalo Whiskerino is not part of the larger sanction, and picks a sole charity of their choice to receive their contributions. Compass House has been the recipient for the organization’s only two years. While the proposition of involving a reputable charity with what could be viewed as a mockery by some, Blane has found exactly the opposite response after trying to incorporate Compass House into their plans. “Sylvia Nadler [Compass House Executive Director] is a great person,” he says. “She has supported us from the very beginning. The three of us visited the Compass House many times, and each time Sylvia was warm and inviting. On the night of our Stache Bash, Sylvia came out to support us and even wore a fake stick-on mustache throughout the evening. It was a lot of fun.”

Compass House is awarded the recipient of Buffalo Whiskerino’s donations for the second consecutive year this spring. Blane and co-founder Geoff Schutte are both teachers at the Tapestry Charter School in South Buffalo, and as Firestone puts it, “are pretty acutely aware of the many challenges teenagers face in our town.” He adds, “I, myself, ran away from home as a teenager, and it was only through the mentorship, kindness and generous help of others that I was able to keep it together, graduate from high school, and get on with my life.” Blane adds, “We all appreciate that this kind of help is often the difference between being a well-adjusted, healthy young adult and getting trapped in a cycle of sadness, poverty, homelessness, and a whole bunch of other problems.”

And yes, that brings us to the Stache Bash. More than just a clever name, Buffalo Whiskerino hosts the closing ceremonies of their grow season at Gordon’s Pub on Delaware Ave., where, as the website puts it, “mustache accomplishments” are celebrated, and a panel of judges preside over several other facial hair-related contests, honoring everything from “creepiest” to best “bread crumb retention.” There is even the crowning of a king and prince and a ceremonial shaving. Not too shabby. But silly? You betcha.

While not exactly an acustomed way of raising money, this approach has attracted a lot of people, young and old, who may not have thought about participating in a charity otherwise. Blane claims that, “Mustaches and beards capture a certain culture of people who want to participate,” perhaps enticing participants who may be more initially enamored with the ironic competition of a mustache contest, almost roped into participating in charity. Beside those who grow, dozens also participate as sole sponsors of staches. “If 30 growers each know ten people who can give ten dollars, that’s $3,000 just for sitting around growing a ‘stache! That’s the power of doing things collectively,” says Firestone.

While many are accessorizing their faces with seasonal mustaches for Buffalo Whiskerino, some take the opposite approach and shed their hair for the sake of charity. Kelly Giallella, a 25 year-old former UB student who graduated with a major in psychology in 2005, is participating in Goin’ Bald for Bucks this month, a drive sponsored by Roswell Park. Participants collect pledges for their participation not unlike Buffalo Whiskerino, but rather than donning staches, this more female-friendly pledge-drive gets participants to shave their head, with pledge money going to cancer research and patient care at Roswell. Giallella is one of five members of the Queen City Roller Girls roller derby team participating, and is doing so for a couple of reasons. Bluntly, Giallella cites, “My grandmother recently passed away from colon cancer and a friend is battling a cancerous tumor in his brain right now.” Though she has participated in fun-races for charity in the past, like the Susan Komen Race Against Breast Cancer and Elephant Run, she thinks that parting is a program like Goin’ Bald for Bucks is saying a lot more than becoming involved in other charitable events. “I am really excited to participate in this way because it will be good to make a statement that will last longer than the time it takes to run a race,” she says. “It is also a bold statement that will get people asking, ‘Why?’ in which can lead into talk about the entire charity event and the cause that I have supported.” Giallella recalls that a number of friends and family members have been affected by cancer and that the support for her participation has been outstanding. “Some people want to pay me more to not do it, because it is crazy and drastic, or for whatever reasoning. My response is that there are people who have no choice. They are going through chemotherapy and cannot decide what their hair will do. People need to see that bald is beautiful, and the person underneath the hair, or lack thereof, is what matters.”

While Buffalo Whiskerino might not have the same notoriety as an event backed by Roswell, or lacks corporate sponsorship that exceeds the level of a neighborhood pub, to the men involved, the future looks hopeful for the organization, and thus, hopeful for Compass House. Blane hopes for a large following and “for it to be a well known city wide fundraising event,” he said, hoping for full-size parade floats and celebrity endorsements from notable mustachioed men, citing the possibility of local weatherman Don Paul as a Stache Bash judge as a dream come true, practically. “The first year is the toughest year for any organization or business to start up, [but] we are much more confident in our success this year,” says Blane. He continues, “We know people are going to support us, we know we are going to raise money for charity, and we know people are going to have fun doing it.”

With these organizations helping out some truly deserving charities, it is easy to see why so many people are getting themselves involved. “Cancer affects everyone, and we need to raise money to help find a cure,” says Giallella. “I want to know that if anymore of my loved ones, or I, get cancer, I want to know that I did what I could to help find a cure.” Whether it is shaving it off or growing it in, both Goin’ Bald for Bucks and Buffalo Whiskerino propose unorthodox yet clever methods of not just involving those with a stake in the cause through personal connections, but encouraging those that don’t usually participate in charitable activities to give it a go. Firestone sums up his group’s intentions best. “We just want to have fun, raise some money to support what Compass House is doing in Western New York, and raise awareness about issues that affect homeless and endangered youth,” he says. “And of course, we want to honor and celebrate the mustache with a kind of enlightened, purposeful, suave panache, rather than the machismo that is sometimes associated with male competition. And mustaches.”