Beard club spreads cheer at Fernwood

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/12/2018 (1954 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It isn’t often that a group of self-described villains is ushered inside a retirement home after dark, but that is exactly what happened Monday in Steinbach.

Six members of Bearded Villains Manitoba arrived at Fernwood Place with a sack of Christmas cards sent in from all over the world. A dozen seniors were all smiles as each received a small stack of personalized greetings penned by far-flung members of the international beard club.

The cards, 140 in all, bore addresses from New Zealand, Scotland, Germany, Holland, and Kuwait, to name a few.

“We wanted you to know that people are thinking about you this holiday season,” Collin Toews told a group of residents assembled on Fernwood’s main floor.

Toews, who grew up in Steinbach and now resides much farther north, is captain of the club’s Manitoba chapter, which formed in July.

The idea of crowdsourcing Christmas cards for those who may feel lonely during the holidays came to him at home one evening.

“I live in Thompson, so I have a lot of free time to think about stuff,” he joked.

Fernwood, where his late great-grandfather used to reside, seemed like a good place to stage the drop-off. He put out a call for cards and his fellow Bearded Villains quickly responded.

“Within 24 hours, we had 106 guys from around the world sign up,” he said. Three dozen more soon joined.

Tazer Taves, as he’s known to fellow members, wasn’t caught off guard by the enthusiastic response.

“Honestly, no surprise at all,” he said. “These guys are legitimately friendly.”

After distributing cards on the main floor, the group went door to door upstairs to hand out the remainder.

Resident Anne Loewen welcomed the denim-clad group—Toews, Joe Harding, Rob St. Godard, Curtis Fazackerley, Brian Marlow-Goldring, and Pat LeQuere—into her living room for a chat.

When John Penner told the Villains his eyesight made reading difficult, they opened the cards and read the greetings aloud.

“You guys are very kind,” Penner said.

Toews said fostering community is part and parcel of the Bearded Villains’ philosophy. The club’s mission statement calls members to unite in acts of “fraternity, charity and kindness.”

“Brotherhood is the core of Bearded Villains,” Toews said. “I think the biggest thing is acceptance, no matter who you are.”

(But not just any facial hair will do. This reporter was told his beard would need to reach four centimetres in length before he was eligible for membership.)

Formed in Los Angeles, Calif. in 2014, Bearded Villains organize an annual “world meet” and hold monthly video conferences, but the majority of local meet-ups are informal, and can happen in person or online.

Membership is one way to make friends in a new town. Harding recently joined the Manitoba chapter after moving to Winnipeg from Ontario, Toews said.

A discounted flight allowed Toews to participate in the Christmas card distribution, but he said it won’t be the group’s last appearance in the city.

With the help of St. Godard, who lives in Steinbach, Toews hopes to recruit enough members to organize a beard contest at next year’s Summer in the City festival to raise funds for South East Helping Hands.