St. Baldrick's Foundation

Highlighting St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a good segue into March as it is a charity that involves sacrifice and love with a little bit of green.  What is St. “Bald”-ricks?

The big picture: “St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-driven charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives” (www.stbaldricks.org).  The interesting piece is how it acquires the means to fund.

The first time I heard of St. Baldrick’s Foundation was two years ago when my cousin and aunt organized and hosted a St. Baldrick’s event at their place of business, Inside the Bungalow.  They scheduled the event a couple of months in advance and immediately started promoting the event, recruited volunteers and “shavees” and began the fundraising.  When the event took place, volunteer “shavers” shaved the heads of the volunteer “shavees” who met their fundraising goals.  It was really amazing to witness all of these men, women and children having their heads shaved for a cause they believed in.  My cousin Carrie was truly bald and beautiful! 

Often times, businesses and/or teams have competitions, trying to see who can raise the most funds.  Women seem to be pretty successful in achieving their goals as they have to shave their head as a consequence. 

Currently, there is a local competition taking place for an event scheduled on March 12, at an Irish Pub called Skeptical Chymist.  For this event, there are 30 “shavees” and a long list of children with whom they are honoring.  I had the pleasure of talking with a “shavee” for this event and she told me her six year old son is one of the children being honored as he is a cancer survivor.  He started his treatment when he was 13 weeks old and continued the therapy for 19 months.  He is now cancer free!  When I told Cara I thought she was brave for volunteering to have her head shaved, she laughed and said she had heard that a lot but it was nothing compared to what the children have had to go through.   

The website is very easy to navigate and lists events taking place in your area.  You can also find out more information about the participants and the children being honored:  http://www.stbaldricks.org/

         

How can we get involved?: 

-Check out the “Get Involved” tab on their website!

-Besides shaving our heads, there are many ways to volunteer and support St. Baldrick’s Foundation.  For example, I can volunteer to pass out t-shirts at an event taking place in my area. 

-Support one of the “shavees” by donating online.  Cara has $5,000 as her goal and is currently at $1,500 as of this morningJ

(To support Cara, from the homepage go to “find a participant” and then type in “Cara Hughes.”)

-Organize an event!

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” ~Helen Keller