Forget bake sales and strawberry teas. A new kind of fundraising is flourishing across the Prairies. In small towns and villages, farmers and firefighters are shucking their clothes for charity.
In the small community of Lakedell, Alta., about 100 kilometres southwest of Edmonton, a dozen men have posed naked with their favourite books to raise money for a new public library and counter the image of men as reluctant readers.
In Eston, Sask., about 200 km southwest of Saskatoon, a group of men has bared all to raise money for new equipment for the health centre.
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Audrey Shillabeer, past-president of the Lakedell Area Community Library Society, said when the society first took on the task of raising $600,000 for a new library in the community, a professional fundraiser told it to forget about bake sales and teas and think of big projects.
One of the board members suggested a calendar similar to the movie Calendar Girls, where a British Women’s Institute group posed naked for a calendar to raise money for cancer.
None of the all-female board members at Lakedell would volunteer to pose nude, but several of their male family members and friends had no problems with the idea.
“They quite willingly took off their clothes,” said Shillabeer.
Look. Men Read. See Men Read is a 12-month calendar with a cross section of local men as models who believe in the importance of public libraries.
Shillabeer said they recruited an electrician, farmer, chef, hockey player and others who didn’t worry about the ribbing they would take for the unique fundraiser.
The oldest model is 70.
“He’s just a fine specimen, if you ask me,” she said.
They had a rancher and a farmer lined up. The day of the shoot turned out to be the best haying day of the year and the rancher cancelled, but not Gary Schmidt, a local farmer and Mr. October.
“He gave up a day of haying for us. That’s how committed he was to the project and the community,” Shillabeer said.
Worries worthwhile
Schmidt, who posed wearing only his cowboy boots and hat while sitting on a bale of straw reading a newspaper, said he had no problem taking time out from work.
“It was for a good cause,” said Schmidt. However, he admits to having some last minute second thoughts. “When my hand hit the door knob of the photo studio, I wondered what I was doing.”
Since the calendar has come out, Schmidt has endured good-hearted ribbing from neighbours, but he believes a community member must do what needs to be done for the community.
Since the project began, the library moved out of the school classroom into a mobile home in nearby
MaMeO Beach. Since the move, membership has increased three times and the number of people using the library has increased.
But not everyone in the community approves. Some members of a local church said they felt it was inappropriate for the library to sell a calendar of nude people, said Shillabeer.
Meanwhile, in Eston, town councilor Al Heron came up with the idea for The Real Men of Eston calendar to raise money for a new electrolyte machine. The old machine, used to analyze blood, often broke down and forced residents to drive more than an hour away for tests.
“The machine was 20 years old and it wasn’t reliable,” said Heron.
Once they received approval from the health region for the fundraising project, Heron and his group asked some ladies in the café to nominate men for the calendar.
From the list of men, Heron planned photo shoot possibilities based on the men’s interests.
During the next year, Heron, who taught photography for 20 years, took the photos of the models in all four seasons for the 16-month calendar.
Heron, 70, is riding his antique snowmobile wearing nothing but boots and a wristwatch. A friend poses with a 1928 Ford Model T roadster, the mayor poses with a lawnmower and the reeve of the local rural municipality was photographed standing in his field.
Already the project has raised enough money to pay for the electrolyte machine. Extra money will go toward buying a van to transport seniors, Heron said.
