Law enforcement in Linn County grow out facial hair for two causes close to their hearts

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) - Law enforcement across Linn County are growing out their facial hair to give back in several ways, including honoring two of their own who died of cancer this year.

A 2023 No Shave calendar featuring members of law enforcement from Cedar Rapids, Marion, Hiawatha, and the Linn County Sheriff’s Office is for sale. The calendar is being created with the help of Honor and Respect.

”Our role at Honor and Respect is to support all first responders, and military members, and their families and so we thought this was a great way to be a part of that,” Ron Slagle said, co-Founder of Honor and Respect.

In addition to each agency’s charity, money from the calendar sales is going to two causes that hit home. One of them is pancreatic cancer research.

”We lost two sergeants in the last year to pancreatic cancer so it’s near and dear to our hearts. We want to support that and so it was the charity we picked for our November funds to go to,” Charity Hansel, mental health officer at the Cedar Rapids Police Department, said.

Sgt. Kent Choate died in January, and most recently Sgt. Tim Camp died in October.

”I knew Tim Camp, he was a great guy, he was a great cop, a great person in general. And for that to be honoring him that’s why it’s so special to all of us,” Slagle said.

December calendar sales will go to Running 4 Heroes. Zechariah Cartledge runs a mile for first responders killed or injured in the line of duty.

”We picked that because they actually supported one of our Linn County deputies that was shot in Coggon and so that is a charity that we wanted to also support,” Hansel said.

Deputy Will Halverson survived and is back on the job.

Hansel said Cedar Rapids Police Collected 10,000 from the no-shave effort in November, as did the Linn County Sheriff’s Office. This means several thousand dollars will go to each cause.

”We’re all affected by cancer, we’re all affected by violence and so we want to support and let our communities know that you know we live here, we raise our kids here as well, and we support the community who has continued to support law enforcement,” Hansel said.

The calendars are for sale on the Honor and Respect website. You can order one here. Orders need to be in by December 9, that’s this Friday. The calendars will be delivered around Christmas time.

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