Fund Razor 2015
By Georgi Iliev
Everybody's growing beards these days. Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Philip Altman, Tim Ward. Some do it for Oscars, some for charity.
ACS's Fund Razor has been going strong for years now, but the end of this school year marks a watershed moment. Before we ponder whether it will survive let us consider how it grew.
In 2013, ACS student Rosen Vutov was inspired by the Movember movement, aka No-Shave November. Beginning with grass-roots Australian charities as early as 1999, Movember grew to be listed by Global Journal as one of the top 100 NGO's in the world in 2012.
In this country, a college student had found the means and was looking for a worthy cause. Rosen and teacher Philip Altman's search led them to the plight of Syrian refugees. In 2013, they had begun streaming into Bulgaria, and were being housed in a fenced-off city block on the edge of Sofia. ACS's UNICEF club wanted to help, and club member Sara Meziad's family had strong connections to the Syrian community, and a working relationship was developed.
That first drive thought it would be optimistic if they raised 1,000 leva. So unattainable seemed that achievement that teacher Ivaylo Dimitrov who hadn't shaved his beard since before the fall of communism teased the organizers that he would lose the facial hair if they reached the mark.
Dimitrov was clean shaven within a month.
The organizers decided against donating the money to a charity fund that would distribute it, and opted for buying useful items instead, and delivering them to the camp themselves. That first year's gift was for the youngest children in the camp: diapers, milk formula and baby food for all.
The following year the donation was children's clothes, with the Meziad family donating baby shoes to match the sum.
This time, the Thanksgiving-Christmas period raised money by selling votes for the best, worst and craziest facial hair, as well as donation boxes throughout campus. The aim was collecting 2,000 leva. And Amos Van Die would part with his hair.
He did.
And Christian Youngs kept his handsome moustache that makes him look like a Renaissance-era Bulgarian, which he considers a good thing.
The sum raised and announced at the Christmas Concert was 2,400 leva. This drive is working. It would be curious – and commendable – if we made it happen again next year, when the main organizers will all have left the school.
