Falmouth Students Shave their Heads to fundraise for local refugees
- Emily Rose Russell
- Jan 31, 2023
- 6 min read
Last Friday evening, three Falmouth University Students shaved their heads to raise money for local refugee organisations, Falmouth and Penryn Welcome Refugee Families and Truro Community Refugee Support. The event was hosted at Fairwinds Falmouth and by the University’s Just Love Falmouth society. Davina Bacon, a co-president of Just Love stated, “Just Love is an inclusive student society that aims to help Christian students, and everyone else, engage with the Biblical call to social justice.”
The evening opened with an introduction from the society’s Co-presidents, Davina and Zac, explaining the nights events, and announcing the open of the donation bake sale. There was also a stall selling Falmouth and Penryn Welcome Refugee Families’ merchandise clothing and a live go-fund-me page up, showing the donations being made through social media. Then, representatives from the two refugee organisations, explained what the charities do.
Rufus from Falmouth and Penryn Welcome Refugee Families exclaimed at how wonderful and generous it was for the students to have a head shave fundraiser, he then further went on to state “essentially we’re a community sponsorship organisation and as that we need a community, so it’s great to be here with this lovely community.” Jude, the founder of the charity further explained, “Community sponsorship is a community group who form a kind of mini social services, they wrap around a particular family, they provide accommodation, English teaching, get the kids into school, help them navigate the health service, integrate into and genuinely become part of the community.”
Clinton from Truro Community Refugee Support stated: “thanks everyone for being here, nothing works unless you’ve got a community around you, so that’s the essence of what we’re doing. It’s important to have support and a group of people around you that care about you, look after you and are there when you need it.
After some time socialising and eating baked goods, it was time for the head shave to start. Zac, a co-president of Just Love Falmouth, explained that each side of hair on the students heads would be auctioned individually. Two of the students, Shanti and Davina sectioned their hair into little braids, as these would be donated to the Little Princess Trust, a charity that uses real hair donations to make wigs for children who have lost their hair due to cancer and other medical reasons.
The right side of Davina’s hair was the first to be cut, followed by Shanti, whose hair was bid on for £50 by TCRS’ Clinton Sealey, then the third student, Rezi’s hair was cut. There were lots of cheers and surprised, but happy faces as they watched the braids be cut off one by one.
Soon after, screeches of pain were heard too as co-president Zac auctioned off his legs for waxing.
Then, the final auctions for the rest of the hair took place, and the audience were invited to come up and shave the remaining hair by a donation of their choice.
I spoke with Davina, Rezi and Shanti about why they decided to host the fundraiser and how they felt about the big shave:
How did you find out about the charities/Why did you decide to fundraise?
“I've known about the charities for a while.” Davina answered, “I've been to some of the jumble sales Falmouth and Penryn Welcome Refugees have done and then I think I found out about TCRS through you and your work with them. We had people from both charities come to a Just Love event in December to talk about the issues refugees are facing in our country and decided that we would do a fundraiser for the amazing work they do helping refugee families resettle in the local area.”
Rezi stated “ I found out about the charity through our presidents, they are so cool and they know a bit about what is going on around this town. We decided to fundraise because we know that it is one of the ways we can help, we want to teach people how to love the community, and just love other people.”
“Through word of mouth living in Falmouth and as someone who cares about the refugee crisis, I’ve known about both charities for a while!” Shanti exclaimed, “We then met Clinton at the BIPOC network event and asked him to speak at Just Love alongside others from both charities and that was when we found out more about the charities and the work they do.”
Why did you decide to do a head shave fundraiser?
Davina explained “I had been wanting to shave my head for a while but never really had the nerve to do it, and then was talking with other people on committee. We wanted to do something big that would encourage people to donate generously, and I guess we figured that shaving our heads would probably do that! It seems like a big deal, but in comparison to having to uproot your entire life because of conflict, it's really not, and I'm really glad we got to raise so much for the charities.”
“We decided on a head shave because Davina has been wanting to do it for a while, I got into it because I thought my hair is something I can give up, I know I would not enjoy being bold, even if it did suit me, I have way too much pride in my hair, it was me and it was a way people recognised me. But the point of me doing it was that I was actively giving up something that means a lot to me.”, Rezi replied.
Shanti said, “For a long time I thought I’d never have the guts to shave my head! But I felt a bit more comfortable with the idea of it when talking to Davina about it I think, and we decided we should go for it and take the opportunity to use it for something good! It still was quite terrifying but I’m so glad we did it.”
How did you feel before the big shave?
“I was excited for it at first, but in the last few days leading up to it, I felt pretty nervous. I've never shaved my hair before and having an afro has always been a big part of my identity.”, Davina stated.
Rezi said, “I was quite overwhelmed and scared and just nervous. I went out for a walk and I was just singing (quite loud) up and down the pier just before the shave and I arrived just a little late to the actual shave which was quite amusing.”
Shanti replied, “I was so so scared before - almost in tears! In all honesty, we also hadn't raised as much money as I had hoped we would and I was worried it wouldn't be worth it.”
How do you feel now?
“I feel really good! Also cold. But good! And we raised much more money than we ever imagined so that's really cool.”, Davina replied.
Rezi said “I'm finding the process of my hair growing back to be amazingly fascinating, feeling the wind in my hair or my head and just watching my hair grow back from nothing is so incredible. I still don't enjoy the idea I don't have my poufy hair.”
Shanti exclaimed, “now I’m so glad we've smashed my expectations of how much money we'd raise - almost £2000! and I am loving the shaved head haha, although it's quite chilly!”
Rezi further went on to state, “It's crazy, I guess, how much we raised. I didn't know we could reach our original goal, which was 500, I thought that goal would have been close but we actually hit that goal the morning of the event which was crazy. As the night before we were on 250 or something. That made me really feel like what I was doing was worth it. It's just crazy the number of people there are that are willing to give up their time and money. I feel quite lucky to have the opportunity to be in this community, and committee they all genuinely care and love others, and they have this big desire to help out the needy and broken.”
The event was very successful, and currently, they have raised £1683 so far! The go-fund-me online fundraiser is still open until the end of January, so if you would like to contribute, visit: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/head-shave-justlovefal?utm_term=3dxKJWRyA
If you would like to find out more about Just Love Falmouth and get involved with their next community fundraiser, follow them @justlovefal on Instagram or Facebook.
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