Officers at four Brazos County agencies will grow beards from Nov. 1 to raise money for children's brain cancer research

Some of the officers patrolling College Station this winter may look a little scruffier than usual, and it will be on purpose.

The College Station Police Department, Bryan Police Department, Texas A&M University Police Department and Brazos County Sheriff's Office are taking part in the "Beard It Up and Color for the Cure" fundraiser, which runs from Sunday, Nov. 1, through Jan. 6, 2027, KBTX reported Wednesday.

How it works

Officers who join pay a donation for permission to grow a beard or goatee. At some of the agencies, female officers can instead donate to paint their nails in a color tied to a cancer that has affected them or someone close to them.

Civilian employees can make a donation to dress down at work, in jeans or a favorite team's shirt, while the campaign is on.

The money goes to the Central Texas chapter of The Cure Starts Now, a nonprofit that pays for research into pediatric brain cancer. The chapter was started in September 2016 by a family whose young daughter died of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a terminal childhood brain cancer, according to KBTX.

The station reported that three Texas law enforcement families have lost a child younger than 10 to the same disease in the past five years.

Started here

Brazos County's agencies were the first law enforcement departments to sign on when the campaign began in 2018. Since then, more than 120 agencies in 24 states have taken part and together raised more than $830,000, KBTX reported. Nationally, the foundation has put $44.3 million toward childhood brain cancer research at more than 100 hospitals, Texas Children's Hospital among them.

Other police, fire and EMS agencies can form their own fundraising teams. Residents who want to back the local departments can give through the campaign page at p2p.thecurestartsnow.org/5915.

Sources

KBTX