When two of his classmates from Rye High School’s Class of 2013 died tragically, Jack Hasselmann was devastated.
Those two good friends died during their freshman year of college, he recalled, after “fighting quiet, desperate battles with mental health and addiction.”
In the months that followed, Hasselmann said he “watched my entire friend group begin to unravel … We were kids; we had no idea how to handle that kind of grief. Our community started to buckle under the weight of it all, and we were forced to watch even more avoidable tragedies take place in the aftermath.”
Four years later, still thinking about his classmates, Hasselmann decided to take action. He teamed up with another Rye High grad — Cole McCormack, Class of 2010 — to raise money for Movember, a nonprofit focused on men’s health issues such as prostate cancer and mental health.
On Feb. 24, the pair were honored in Baltimore as Fundraising Volunteers of the Year by the Peer-to-Peer Professional Forum for having raised $1 million since 2019 for Movember, the group that nominated them.
The core of McCormack and Hasselman’s work is an annual November party in Manhattan called the Mustachio Bashio.
Not only do they raise money, Hasselmann and McCormack are also passionate about educating men to take better care of themselves. When they teamed up in 2018, the pair set out to create a community that would “redefine macho.” They wanted to encourage more men to seek medical and mental health help and check in on friends and family. In addition to a shared concern about mental health, McCormack’s connection to Movember had much to do with cancer; he knew too many men who had fought the disease, including his father, who has successfully battled prostate cancer.
They dubbed their group Team Macho Macho and set their sights on creating an upbeat fundraising party to benefit Movember.
Just starting out in the working world, however, McCormack and Hasselmann had no money to bankroll such an event. They had to depend on “sheer grit” and donations to stage their first gathering in 2019, Hasselmann said.
Many of the friends, family, and businesses who supported them had a Rye connection. For example, Kelly’s Sea Level and Longford’s provided food and ice cream sandwiches for the 250 people who crammed under a tent on a New York City rooftop that November for the inaugural Mustachio Bashio.
That first outing raised more than $10,000 to support Movember’s research and supportive services.
Team Macho Macho has expanded from a group of men growing mustaches — Movember’s signature peer-to-peer fundraising program — into a multichannel program involving sponsorship, ticket sales, auctions, raffles, and peer-led team fundraising.
A 15-person steering committee has enabled the team to raise money through such activities as summiting Mount Kilimanjaro, hosting sold-out concerts, and “hacking it up at golf outings,” McCormack said.
In 2025, close to 400 people attended “GoldenBall,” the sixth edition of Mustachio Bashio, which raised $125,000. After the event, Team Macho Macho continued to raise over $240,000 through traditional peer-to-peer fundraising and hosting other events like a golf tournament, mini concerts, and mental health connection dinners.
“Cole and Jack represent the very best of what Movember stands for: community, courage, and a deep commitment to changing the face of men’s health,” said Brittany Veneris, director of U.S. fundraising at Movember. “Their leadership shows that when passionate supporters take ownership of a cause, the impact extends far beyond a single event. It builds a movement.”
