VANCOUVER -- When Dave McCloskey pitched his idea for a fundraiser for his local food bank to the organization's CEO, she had some mixed feelings.
"I messaged Dave when he first told me about it and said, 'I'm very grateful, but I also feel a little worried for you," said Claire Maclean, CEO of Share Family and Community Services, which operates a food bank for residents of B.C.'s Tri-Cities.
McCloskey's plan was to eat a series of progressively spicier foods and livestream his experiences while asking for donations to the food bank.
"We came up with this plan to do it three nights, over Saturday nights to replace Hockey Night in Canada," he said.
On the first night, he tackled the Lil' Nitro gummy bear, which registers nine million on the Scoville scale. That's more than 1,000 times hotter than the typical jalapeno pepper, which registers about 8,000.
A volunteer firefighter, McCloskey isn't afraid of the heat, though he did open his gummy bear livestream by warning:
"If anyone needs my help before noon tomorrow, I'm unavailable."
Friends and family challenged him to go without relief from the heat for 10 minutes, but had ice cream ready for him when he finished the challenge.
"It's intense out of the gate," McCloskey said. "Part of the challenge is you have to chew it for a minute and there's just no hiding. After a minute, it's just everywhere in your mouth."
Not only is McCloskey putting his tastebuds on the line, he's also putting his hair, beard and mustache on the chopping block if he can raise $13,000.
As of Sunday, his fundraiser had accumulated almost $7,900, and he had one more livestream to go.
"It's really caught on," said Maclean. "Even my son said to me this morning, 'We get to watch that guy eat spicy stuff this weekend.' … He's definitely a big hit."
With files from CTV News Vancouver's Nafeesa Karim
