North Derbyshire friends' head shave challenge during lockdown raises £10,000 for NHS

Danny Howson, 26, got his girlfriend Gemma to shave his hair off ‘for a laugh’ before sharing it with some close friends on a group chat – little knowing what he had started.

The challenge quickly ‘snowballed’ with mates joining in and auctioning charity cash totals they had to reach before they joined Danny in braving the shave.

The challenge has now raised about £10,500 and has picked up some celebrity endorsements, with Sheffield United star Oli McBurnie among those retweeting the appeal, and donations pouring in from across the UK and overseas.

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Danny, who lives in Marsh Lane, near Eckington, and works at Social Work England, said: “The target was only set at £1,000 in the first place. After that it just snowballed really, we must have had over 75 people shaving their heads and the current total is £10,420!

“Along the way we've had retweets from Oli McBurnie and Ben Osborn from Sheffield United. Jon McClure also gave us a shout out on a live Facebook video he did which has been great. We've had donations from Durham to the US too which has been amazing.

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“My sister Sophie works at Chesterfield Royal Hospital and is seeing a lot of the fall-out from this virus so it's nice to be able to give something back.

“It also works as a sort of light entertainment too whilst people are confined to their homes!”

Danny’s sister, Sophie Howson, works on the physio team doing the rounds on wards at the Royal.

Almost 700 people have donated via Danny’s Justgiving page and all the funds raised will go to NHS Charities Together, which supports health staff and volunteers caring for Covid-19 patients across the UK.

There are 250 NHS charities in the UK providing funds and services above and beyond what the NHS alone can provide. Every day, NHS Charities give £1 million to the NHS.

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