The idea started with TAG and journalism teacher John McBride, who was having a conversation with Erik Hoveland, student services liaison at the high school.

“He and I talked about what is something that we can do with No Shave November as a contest,” McBride said.

The two decided on asking teachers to shave their facial hair at the end of October and commit to not shaving for the whole month of November. Students can bring in canned goods and other non-perishable food items to vote for their favorite “beard in progress” throughout the month.

“The biggest thing that we talked about is there are kids in our building who will leave in two weeks for Thanksgiving break and not have the opportunity to have a good Thanksgiving meal with their family,” McBride said.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
The food pantry at Fort Dodge Senior High serves the school’s students. It started several years ago as a student-led project.

Some of the teachers had full beards before the challenge started, while others had already been clean-shaven. On Oct. 31, McBride shaved the beard he had been sporting since April 2012 to start No Shave November with a fresh face.

The teachers — 20 in total, including district Superintendent Jesse Ulrich — are asking students to bring in items that would fit well with a Thanksgiving dinner, like green beans, stuffing mix, sweet potatoes and more. All the food donations that come in will directly benefit the school’s students as they will go to the student food pantry located in the school.

“We started the food pantry a few years ago because we kind of knew there was a need for it, that there are kids in our district that go home and don’t have anything to eat,” McBride said.

Students can go to the food pantry, which is located in the Alternative School classroom, any time during the school day or after school and get whatever they need, no questions asked.

“A lot of kids don’t realize that we have kids in our building who struggle to eat every day,” McBride said.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
The food pantry at Fort Dodge Senior High also stocks toiletries and personal items for students who need them.

This is the fourth year of the food pantry being in the school, according to Alternative Education teacher Shawn Grossnickle, who supervises the pantry. He said the pantry sees an average of six to eight families a week, but that he’d like to see more who need it use it.

“We’ve got the food and we can get the food,” he said.

He said students can come in any time to get items from the food pantry — which also has personal care items and toiletries — and that parents can come by as well.

Grossnickle said that this No Shave November competition is going to be great for the food pantry because it will spread the word that it’s there for students to use and it will bring in more food to add to its shelves.

The teachers participating in the competition each have a box outside their classroom or office door for students to add to. Ulrich’s box is located in the FDSH main office.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
The food pantry at Fort Dodge Senior High is always needing donations.

Even though this is a competition, cheating is encouraged, McBride said.

“We’re just trying to encourage everybody to bring in as much as they can,” he said.

So if teachers want to bring cases of canned goods in to add to their boxes, they’re encouraged to do so.

And many teachers are doing incentives to motivate their students to bring items in, McBride added.

He also said that if parents of students or community members want to bring canned goods in, they’re more than welcome to and they can bring them to the main office. They will be collecting items until Nov. 26.

At the end of it all, the prize is pretty simple.

“Bragging rights,” McBride said. “And for everybody to feel good that they did something to help students.”