Community Corner

Shaved Heads for a Cause

The annual St. Baldrick's event is Sunday at Jackie Reilly's.

This weekend hundreds of Farmingdale residents will shave their heads to benefit the St. Baldrick's Foundation, a charity committed to funding research to find cures for childhood cancers.

"We already have 130 shavees signed up including two women," said organizer Monica Kuchinskas.

The event is Sunday from 12 to 7 p.m. at Jackie Reilly's in Bethpage. Last year the group raised $94,000 thanks to participants from the Farmingdale elementary and middle schools as well the Bethpage Fire Department and Holy Trinity High School.

Find out what's happening in Farmingdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The St. Baldrick's Foundation began back on March 17, 2000, when executives John Bender, Tim Kenny and Enda McDonnell turned their industry's St. Patrick's Day party into a head-shaving event to benefit kids with cancer. They planned to raise "$17,000 on the 17th" and instead raised $104,000, according to the foundation's website.

The movement grew into a world-wide fundraising program for childhood cancer research and today the St. Baldrick's Foundation funds more childhood cancer research grants than any organization minus the U.S. government.

Find out what's happening in Farmingdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Since 2000, more than 147,000 volunteers, including 12,000 women, have shaved their heads to raise $90 million for life-saving research.

To read more and donate to the Farmingdale event click here.

Will you be shaving your head on Sunday for this cause? Tell us in the comments.


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