It all started with a dare.
Rob Hale, CEO of Granite Telecommunications, told one of his employees that if he shaved his beard, the company would give $10,000 to charity, according to Yahoo.
He was joking, but the word spread. On Monday, 428 employees, including Hale, gathered in the lobby of their Quincy, Mass., office where 18 barbers were waiting to shave heads for a good cause.
The company agreed to give $1,000 for each employee who went under the razor, while Hale and his mother, Judy, pledged to give an additional $2,000 each, for a total of $5,000 per shaved head. All the money will be given to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a hospital in Boston where Hale's father was treated for pancreatic cancer before he died six years ago, according to WCVB.
Together, they raised more than $2 million.
"It was a really an electric couple of hours," Hale told Yahoo.
Some employees donated their hair to Locks of Love, an organization that makes wigs for children undergoing chemotherapy or who have long-term medical hair loss, CBS Boston reported.
"In a few weeks, it went from a whimsical comment to a galvanizing moment," Hale told Yahoo. "It makes a powerful statement about our company, and it makes a powerful statement about cancer."
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