If you’ve noticed a little extra hair on the face of Mansfield’s police force lately, there’s a reason for that. Male officers have been growing their beards and women painting their nails, all in the name of charity thanks to an idea from Ptl. Stephen Brane.
“For the past two or three years we’ve been kind of down in the dumps; we’ve been short on people and short on equipment so I was trying to think of something we could do for a little morale boost,” said Brane. “I did some research online and looked up other departments that had facial hair policies, and there were some that did beards for charity.”
After getting approval from former Mansfield Police Chief Dino Sgambellone, Brane started spreading the word throughout the department that beards would be acceptable during the colder months. The only stipulations were beards could be no longer than half an inch, and the neck had to be clean-shaven. Women in the department were allowed to paint their nails a color other than a natural skin tone.
“We had to put the beard stipulation for a couple reasons,” said Brane. “One, it’s a safety issue, if you were to get in a fight with someone nobody could grab onto your facial hair, and two, if we ever had to utilize our gas masks we would have to have a proper fit. When I put the email out I specifically said we couldn’t have any Duck Dynasty beards.”
Brane initially set a goal of $5,000 to be raised by Oct. 1 and donated to United Way Richland County, which calculated to at least $67.50 for each participant. Among police officers alone almost $3,000 was raised, with the grand total among police department employees amounting to almost $10,000.
“Everybody was more than generous and willing to step up and donate to charity,” said Brane. “It was pretty awesome.”
After the funds were raised, approximately 40 officers started growing out their beards in the name of charity when the department switched to their winter uniforms on Oct. 1, and as the switch to summer uniforms approaches on April 1 so does the deadline for facial hair. There are only a handful of officers left with beards, but Brane said the novelty hasn’t worn off yet.
“Every time you come in and see someone with a beard you want to make a comment about it, because it’s something you don’t see,” he said. “It was kind of the buzz of the police department for a while, just to look at everybody’s beards. You’ve got some of the guys who are older with fully gray beards or fully white ones, it was fun to sit around and talk about it.”
Officers have even been able to have fun with growing their facial hair, which Brane said has been a great boost to morale.
“In the men’s locker room there’s a big long mirror on the back of our door, and on the top of the mirror there’s a saying, ‘Does your appearance command respect?’ So the day we started growing beards I printed the word ‘beard’ on a piece of paper and we taped it over ‘appearance.’ So it said, ‘Does your beard command respect?’ Everybody has kept it fun,” said Brane.
With mostly positive feedback from Police Chief Ken Coontz and members of the community, Brane said the police department is planning on bringing beards for charity back in the fall. He noted all participating officers have done a good job of keeping their beards trimmed and presentable.
“That’s the way it’s always been with police departments, they run it so military-like, but nowadays everything’s getting so progressive,” said Brane. “Beards are coming into the corporate world, not everybody has to be clean-shaven. I don’t think it takes away from anything, everybody has been well-kept, and I think it looks good.”
“Every time you come in and see someone with a beard you want to make a comment about it, because it’s something you don’t see,” Ptl Stephen Brane said.
