Steven Schein shaved his head five years ago at a St. Baldrick’s Foundation event, and continues to do so once a year to raise awareness for pediatric cancer.
A St. Baldrick’s head-shaving fundraiser, hosted by the Binghamton University Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), was held in the Events Center on Monday, March 12. BU’s SAAC has hosted St. Baldrick’s fundraisers for the past seven years, raising a total of over $83,000.
The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-run charity that helps fund childhood cancer research grants and hosts head-shaving events to raise money and awareness. The organization was originally created when businessman Tim Kenny challenged his colleagues John Bender and Enda McDonnell to shave their heads to raise money for cancer research. The three organized their first event on St. Patrick’s Day in 2000, coining the term “St. Baldrick’s.” Since then, the foundation has helped plan shaving events around the world.
For Schein, a junior majoring in biomedical engineering, the fundraiser hits home.
“That’s just something that I think affects me personally,” Schein said. “My brother had a lot of medical bills when he was younger, and my mom’s had cancer and other members of my family have had cancer, so it’s just more of a personal thing.”
Linda Reynolds, a fundraiser organizer and the assistant athletic director for student-athlete development, said the event brings many parts of the greater Binghamton community together.
“We’ve kept doing it year after year, because it’s one of those events that’s great because we get student athletes involved, we get the campus involved and we get the community involved,” Reynolds said.
Student-athletes from the softball and swimming teams helped volunteer during the event by signing people in and handing out St. Baldrick’s merchandise, such as T-shirts and bracelets. Abby Koerwitz, a sophomore majoring in psychology, said her position as an athlete helped raise awareness for the event.
“Because we are athletes, we could easily spread the word,” Koerwitz said. “Tell people in our class, and spread the word and just get St. Baldrick’s out there to help raise awareness and money.”
Reynolds said seeing people with shaved heads brought awareness to the event and the problem of pediatric cancer.
“I think that this is a unique event because obviously people shaving their heads from a promotional aspect, you know, gets attention and draws people in to wonder why you shaved your head” Reynolds said. “And I think anytime a woman in particular shaves her head, people take notice and they want to know what’s going on. I think it’s fun from that perspective, but more than that, the money comes back to us locally, which is nice.”
Women participating had the option to either shave or cut their hair in ponytails, which were donated to Wigs for Kids and Pantene Beautiful Lengths, charities that create wigs for cancer patients.
Carrie Maniccia, a senior majoring in biology and a player for the women’s softball team, cut off 10 inches of her hair for the event. The team “adopted” a young cancer patient as their “adopted teammate,” who goes to practices and games with BU’s softball team.
“I think that any furthering on cancer research or being able to help those who have gone through that is important,” Maniccia said.
Reynolds said she believes the prospect of raising money for childhood cancer research is what keeps people coming back to these events.
“The cause itself, I mean just raising funds for childhood cancer research, I think that in [and] of itself is a reason why anyone should come out and do this,” Reynolds said.