Jackson Free Press

Three local chefs and restaurateurs, two sets of shears and one bet amounted to $800 and a whole lot of turkey over the weekend. The ordeal left Tom Ramsey, chef at Underground 119 and columnist for BOOM Jackson magazine, with a mohawk and Patrick Kelly, co-owner of Julep and Mint restaurants, with a very close buzz cut.

The haircuts benefitted #4kturkey, a guerilla fundraising campaign organized by Eddie Outlaw, Michael Smith, Lori Garrott and Stacey Spiehler. Last year, the group of friends banded together to raise money to pay off random strangers' layaways. This year, they planned ahead to go bigger and better.

The original aim was to raise $4,000 for Stewpot Community Services, which equals about 30,000 pounds of food for the community. Stewpot serves hot meals daily to anyone who comes by, no questions asked, and puts together packages of food to give to families in need. Using mainly Twitter, Facebook and word-of-mouth, #4kturkey surpassed their goal within two days, and things started to get interesting.

Ramsey offered to allow the next person who made a sizable donation to shave his hair into a Mohawk. Dan Blumenthal, chef of Mangia Bene's three local restaurants, immediately donated $300. Then Kelly offhandedly commented that he would let his head be shaved for $500. Ramsey drove straight to Mint and collected $500 from Mint's patrons and staff.

The jokes flowed freely Saturday, the day of the (hair) reckoning. "This is effectively putting L.A. Looks out of business," Outlaw joked as the first clumps of Ramsey's hair fell. Blumenthal shaved several stripes into Ramsey's hair before letting Outlaw take over and shape it into a Mohawk. Then the tables were turned and Kelly took the chair, allowing Ramsey to first carve a T into his coif, then proceed to buzz his hair down to a very close shave.

When the 72 hours expired on Monday morning, the fundraising campaign had collected $9,265.