For the past four years, senior fashion and merchandising and management major Spencer Villinski has embraced a passion project of his: “Movember,” an awareness hub and charity that is a space to raise funds and awareness for issues affecting men.
“[Movember covers] men's health, suicide prevention, prostate cancer, and testicular cancer. So Movember funds or sort of hosts their own men's health projects,” Villinski said.
Villinski continued, “So their mission is extending the lifetimes of men and helping men who are struggling and sort of breaking down the stigma of getting help and, being vulnerable and being a man of more words.”
Villinski first got involved with Movember during his first year on campus, as he was looking for a project to take on. “This was also when I was a first year and I was like, I don't know, like figuring out like campus life and who I was going to be,” Villinski said.
“I kind of had like previous struggles with mental health in my mid-teens and late teens in particular. So it was very close to home and very much a personal issue. I think like November 2021, it came on my radar and it just made a lot of sense and it felt right to do it” Villinski said.
If someone wants to get involved in Movember, they can get involved in a few different ways. Options include starting clean-shaven at the beginning of the month, growing a mustache, exercising 60 miles over the month, or hosting a moment, which is when someone would host a fundraising event
In years past, Villinski has chosen to run 60 miles during the month of November, “In 2021 grew a mustache, and in 2022 and 2023 did the movement challenge. And then this year I'm doing the mustache one. Would have done the running one again coming off ACL surgery. So probably 60 miles was not in the cards,” Villinski said.
When it comes to donations every year, Villinski sees that a majority of them are from the Lasell community. “My classmates donate to teammates, professors, and administration. I think that's kind of like something I've noticed it's like an issue that people get behind quickly and you don't need to sell it. It's easy for people to get on board if it's brought to their attention,” Villinski said.
Villinski's charitable works have seen an uptick every year, in part from people who he wasn’t thinking would donate. “A few times, any given month, I'll get that notification on my phone and I'll be like, ‘Whoa, that person that donated, I haven't seen their name in like a million years.’ Hopefully, they remember me fondly and felt this issue was prevalent and worthwhile and were willing to donate,” Villinski said.
There are flyers explaining what Movember is and how to donate around campus. The link to Villinski's Movember Space is in his Instagram bio and posted on LinkedIn.
Villinski gives some advice to live by and think about “Be kind to yourself, be kind to others. I feel like that can be like tough today. There's just a lot of things at play that are kind of like drag you down. But I don't know. Choose joy, choose optimism, be kind.”
If you want to donate, you can do so by clicking here: https://us.movember.com/mospace/14638740?mc=1&utm_medium=share&utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=copy-clipboard
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