Pitching in: Movember Hall of Famer kick-starts new initiative for men’s mental health with his son

The organizer: Jeffrey Peckitt

The pitch: Launching Movember’s Father and Son Challenge

The cause: To raise awareness about men’s mental health

Nearly two years ago, Jeffrey Peckitt got a call from his doctor that everyone dreads. He was told that he had Stage 4 throat cancer.

“I bought stationary to start writing letters to family and friends,” Mr. Peckitt, 68, recalled from his home in Toronto. He went through days of depression and felt “haunted by the prospect of never walking my daughter down the aisle or ever meeting my grandchildren.”

A week after his diagnosis, Mr. Peckitt met an oncologist who said test results revealed good news. “We see it’s in your throat,” they told him. “We see it jumped to your lymph node. I’m pretty sure it’s Stage 2 with one caveat that it hasn’t jumped anywhere else.”

After surgery and several rounds of treatment at Princess Margaret hospital, Mr. Peckitt’s cancer went into remission. “I’m clean. I got treated like royalty. I got lucky. It was Stage 2, not Stage 4.”

Around the same time, Mr. Peckitt got a surprise call from officials at the Canadian chapter of Movember, the global charity that raises money for men’s health programs.

He’s been a long-time fundraiser for Movember and raised more than $100,000 since 2010. The chapter announced that he would be inducted into Movember Canada’s Hall of Fame as one of the country’s top 20 fundraisers. “I was truly floored and humbled,” he recalled.

During the induction ceremonies, he spoke with the charity’s global leadership about an idea. His son, Jon, had become involved in Movember as well and they’d talked about the growing need to tackle men’s mental health. Jon’s friend had died by suicide and Mr. Peckitt felt it was important to break down the stigma many men feel when it comes to discussing mental health.

He proposed launching the Father and Son Challenge as part of Movember’s annual fundraising campaign. “It’s not a competition,” he said. “It’s about just talking to each other, talking to your son, talking to his schoolmates. Let’s open up and talk to each other, let’s get people involved.”

The charity agreed and Canada will be the first country to hold the challenge this fall.

Mr. Peckitt is thankful for his health and the opportunity to take the challenge global. More importantly, he added, “we hope to assure young men that there is no shame in reaching out to others in one’s darkest hours. It’s literally a matter of life or death.”