The two may have seemed an unlikely pair, but an ESPN radio broadcast and Geno Levi Salon joined forces quite successfully to support a great cause.

ESPN radio hosts Tunch Ilkin and Craig Wolfey weren't in the locker room for Thursday's broadcast, but live at the McMurray salon, which held a fundraiser for Pittsburgh’s Light of Life Rescue Mission.

The pair of radio hosts from ESPN AM 970 show, In the Locker Room with Tunch and Wolf, talked sports and giving from noon to 2 p.m. while the salon's customers donated to the Pittsburgh-based homeless shelter and ministry.

As the business buzzed with holiday hustle, black and gold was at least as prominent as red and green—the Geno Levi staff turned out in their Steelers' best.

Ilkin told those in the salon and on the airwaves he was very thankful for  everyone who showed up at the event. And he thanked the stylists, too.

"Because with us blaring in their ears, it's probably not very easy to cut hair," he joked.

No one in the salon seemed to mind, of course.

“Just having the event—really getting the word out over the broadcast—it’s great to get on people's minds,” said Jessi Marsh, Light of Life’s assistant director of development.

“People love and Tunch and Wolf,” she added. “They are well loved in the Pittsburgh area and we’re very blessed that they are so supportive of Light of Life.”

The organization not only provides the homeless with food and other necessities, it helps them to regain the security they may have lost.

“People’s lives are completely changed,” said Kate Wadsworth, a public relations associate with Light of Life. “They have stability in their lives now because of the programs.”

Reclaiming that stability is something salon founder and owner Geno Levi knows about firsthand.

According to event organizers, Levi was homeless once. Now a successful stylist who's run his own salon for more than 30 years, giving back is at the heart of his business.

Two percent of the sales of his own Geno Levi line of hair products goes to the Beauty Restores Foundation, which he founded last year.

The organization supports not only Light of Life, but the Washington City Mission homeless shelter.

"I think it's very generous of Cindy (Levi's wife) and Geno to give the opportunity to donate to Light of Life," said Anne Parisi of Peters Township.

The event is the first with a radio broadcast from the salon, but if the event’s great results are any indication, it likely won’t be the last.

“It was incredible—just the amount of donations was huge,” said employee Angel Lusk. “I think it shows the spirit of the community.”

After the event, it was too soon for representatives from Light of Life to say how much money was raised, but they estimated the charity had received hundreds of pounds of toiletry donations.

The collection began not long after Thanksgiving and the salon made sure that clients knew what items—like bars of soap—were needed most. Within those few months, customers managed to fill two bins. By the end of the radio broadcast, a third bin was overflowing.

The toiletries will go to folks Light of Life serves, including the homeless in the Pittsburgh area and also in Costa Rica, where they will be taken on a mission trip in January.