Former Harden man Jock Ward (pictured) has set out to not only grow a glorious moustache but also run 60kms over the month of November.
Along with being a lot of kilometres, the number 60 carries much more meaning, Jock is running 60kms for the 60 men we lose each hour of every day to suicide.
Jock, at the time of writing, has recorded nine out of the 60kms and has raised $670 of the $1000 he hopes to achieve.
Movember was started in 2003 by two Australian men Travis Garone and Luke Slattery, who originally started it as a joke amongst friends to bring back the fashion of growing a moustache.
Later on they decided to associate the challenge with a blue ribbon like the one used to advocate for breast cancer in order to campaign for Mens Mental Health.
When Garone and Slattery approached their friends they were shocked to see that 30 of their friends were ready to take on the challenge after sending an email “Are you man enough to be my man?”.
Though Jock has since moved out of Harden to Temora, he has strong Harden roots with his father Chris and mother Nicole being life long Harden local’s, and Jock’s grandfather being a local legend in Eric Kuhn.
Jock has many reasons for wanting to participate in Movember. “I’ve had a moustache for the past five or so years and it would get around this time of the year and I’ve either been to late or I haven’t been able to get around to raising funds for it,” said Jock.
“There’s a lady in Temora who was telling me a bit about it, so then I went home and had a bit of a look myself and thought I’d give it a crack so I got the page up and going.
“I started off by running 3kms, then I ran 6kms the other morning and I’ll keep running in the afternoon after work and on the weekends.
“It hasn’t been to bad on the body so far but theres still a long way to go. “I didn’t expect the funds to go up so quickly but it’s good to see,” Jock continued.
“Hopefully I can do it again next year, the biggest problem was not knowing how to do put the website up, now that I know how to do that I don’t see why I wouldn’t do it next year.
“I’ve had a lot of people donate so far through my link on Instagram and Facebook which is great to see. “It’s always great to help such a good cause,” Good luck to Jock on his goal to raise $1,000 for such a great cause.
If you’d like to help Jock raise money for mens mental health then simply go to the Movember website and search ‘Jock Ward’. Remember every dollar counts and it’s all going to a worthy cause.
Tully Potts
