Eric here. It's February and two dozen of us are 25 days away from shaving our heads and faces to help the St. Baldrick's Foundation help kids fight cancer. I've been growing it out since November 1st, and man, I'm ready to be bald again! This is my sixth year shaving my head, sixth year volunteering and third year as event organizer for our local event, and while it's a lot of work, it's very rewarding work. Here's why:
Last year we met Kolby, from Youngstown. He was diagnosed in 2015 at age three and started treatments for Early B Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. He was in treatment but still came out to our 2016 event and watched his brother shave his head, and he had fun. He was diagnosed as cancer free in 2015, but is on a three-year maintenance plan. He will be five 10 days after our 2017 event and his future looks bright. ALL is the most common cancer in boys ages 2-5. It also has the best cure rate of over 95%, and we hope he comes out again this year!
Kolby is one of the 300,000 kids world-wide that are diagnosed with cancer. Kolby is why we do this. Last year, with your help, the St. Baldrick's Foundation had 1,240 head-shaving events that raised raised more than $38 million for research grants. Locally, we had our best year ever, raising $19,451.
We are asking for your help again. Just click the link below and donate what you can. Every dollar helps, so please don't feel your donation is too small. And if you can't donate this year, could you share the link on your social media sites? We have 24 people signed up to shave their heads on March 11 including nine women, and Marek, who's seven and shaving his head for the third time as a participant and for the fourth time overall. With what we raised last year, and this year, we've given more than $60,000 St. Baldrick's Foundation since we started in 2012. The donation page link is below and your support is appreciated. Here's the link to our 2017 St. Baldrick's Head Shaving. Come join us for a fun run, bands, beer, bald heads and a basket raffle on Saturday, March 11th. Thanks! Join us by signing up to shave your head or donate to the event, a team or participant here: https://www.stbaldricks.org/events/austintown2017
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| The photo is Kolby on the left, and his brother Robby on the right from last year's event. Robby raised more than $600 and shaved his head with us. |
