Bringing new meaning to the term, “a sea of red,” about 1,600 natural redheads gathered at Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland, Oregon, for 10 minutes to break the world record for the most read-headed people together in one place.

Although the record won’t be official for another few months — Guinness World Records has to verify it — unofficial counts of the gathering added up to somewhere between 1,300 and 1,600, well over the expected 1,255 natural redheads that event organizers had hoped would show up, according to Oregon Live.

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To participate, each redhead had to prove it was au naturel with a color photo from their childhood, showing that they had red hair back then too.

Portland held a previous record for most gingers in one spot, with 890 in 2010, before folks in Bred, Netherlands took the title in 2012 with 1,255.

Redheads only make up two to six percent of the population. Their hair color is determined by a dysfunctional variant of the MC1R gene, which is responsible for activating melanin.

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The event that the hopeful record breakers were participating in was actually a fundraiser for the Skin Cancer Foundation. Redheads are particularly susceptible to skin cancer from absorbing the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) light, whether its UVA (associated with damaging skin without sunburn), or UVB (associated with sunburns).

Duke University researchers discovered that both UVA and UVB light caused oxidative stress in the pigments of redheaded people’s hair, whereas only UVB light caused oxidative stress in black hair, according to the Washington Times. Oxidative stress is a known part of the development of cancer. It essentially disrupts the normal redox state of cells, damaging their DNA through the production of peroxides and free radicals.

The large gathering in Portland wasn’t just to break records and promote a cause though. For many of them, it was about being amongst, “brethren, their own kind,” event organizer Rusty Weise told KATU.com.

“It’s pretty cool,” Shea Hergert said. “Usually I’m the one that sticks out in a crowd. I blend in today.”