In an amazing feat the Razorless for a Reason Campaign aka Beards for Bucks took in donations in all of New Hampshire totaling a whopping $245,458!

Who is the CAC and why is this campaign so important you ask? The Child Advocacy Center’s mission statement “Our mission is to provide all victims of child abuse in New Hampshire a neutral environment where justice, healing, equity and prevention are fostered through the consistent, high quality and sustaining collaboration of community partners.” To break that down into more personal way of looking at it they are a group of people who help children through the worst of the worst. They help children dealing with things that no child should ever have to deal with. They get up each morning and know they may have to meet a new child that day who has just gone thru something that most of us could not ever imagine having to deal with.

Now that you know who they are let’s talk about why this campaign is so important. The Child Advocacy Center’s parent company is the Granite State Children’s Alliance who get a minimum of 13 percent of its funding from these fundraisers meaning that 13% of the over 2 million they spend per year on helping these children get thru the worst thing they have ever had to deal with comes from fundraisers just like this.

Bill Wright is one of the people who took part in this campaign that we feel went above and beyond his call to duty. As previously stated in a article by T-Bone Jankowski here at the Bastion, Sheriff Wright started out with a goal of $500. After hitting his goal he felt that it just wasn’t enough so he added a new tier that if he hit new goals of $1,000 and $1,500 he would do a full day of work with a pink beard and pink hair. After smashing both of those goals and almost hitting $2,000 that night he went into work the next day allowing The Bastion to get photographs of him while he served in this capacity. Sheriff Bill then turned his eyes to a friendly competition with the other highest donation getter for Belknap County, Officer Robert Nedeau of the Meredith Police Department. At the conclusion of this campaign Sheriff Bill had raised over $4,100!

Officer Robert Nedeau is another person who we feel deserves a special shout out with an original goal of $3,000 he managed to garner an insane amount at $5,600. Officer Nedeau has been in law enforcement since 1999 starting his career in Center Harbor with roughly five years of service before moving on to Meredith for nine years. Robert then spent eight years with the Belknap County Sheriff’s Department before making his way back to Meredith PD. This was Officer Nedeau’s fifth year doing the beards for bucks fundraiser. When asked why he tried so hard to raise the money he said:

“The CAC is such a great organization with very special people working there.  Anything I can do to help them accomplish their very difficult job I am more than willing to do.”

Officer Nedeau

And we here at The Bastion agree there is no harder job then the job these CAC workers have to do. As a last shoutout to the amazing giving nature this officer has we asked him why he became an officer, and his response made us smile “I have always loved serving the community I grew up in and currently live.

Our last honorable mention is for someone outside of Belknap County. Chief Christopher Mattei raked in an incredible $23,455 which is the largest donation from anyone participating in the state of New Hampshire. Christopher Mattei is the Chief of Police for the Conway Police Department. Well done Sir, well done to you all.