Now, if you've just joined, let me refresh you on my journey with St. Baldrick's Foundation.☘️
In March 2008, I heard about this fundraiser where instead of a walkathon or a telethon, it was a shaveathon. Raise as much money as you can to help conquer kids' cancer, and then once you meet your goal, shave your head in solidarity. As much as I love kids, my grandma was going through a serious bout with cancer. I wanted to shave in solidarity with her. Raised a bunch of money and shaved my head for the first time.☘️
In April 2008, my Grandma passed away. My good friend Ali also experienced a loss that year. We heard New Paltz was doing an event so I grew back a month's worth of hair and shaved it again. Ali shaved off a whole head of long, black hair! More money towards conquering kids' cancer!☘️
In 2009 again at Fatty McGees and 2012 at the Nutty Irishman, I shaved again raising more money. More memorable though was that I influenced Cody to start shaving his head too for St. Baldricks!☘️
In 2014, just when I thought my head shaving days were behind me, I started teaching in Babylon Village. :sigh: Babylon. I loved that class and little did I know that little Troy and his pop, Rob Ert, were leading a team of their own. Well, a whole bunch of students from our class, the grade, a few dads, and I shaved our heads. What a memorable day! ☘️
By 2014, St. Baldricks had added another feature where you could honor a child. I looked through the list and randomly ended up choosing a little boy named Drew Brennan. It looked like a cute picture. Then I saw that underneath his name it said "angel". That broke my heart. This sweet little boy passed away.
A few hours went by after I made my site go live and I got a call from Ali. She told me that the little boy she shaved her head for was the same boy, Drew, who I randomly picked to honor that year.
After that, God pretty much made the choice for me that there was nothing left up top to shave. The choice was pretty much made for Cody too but he was more determined than me. Cody spent every year growing out what hair he had left to raise money to conquer kids' cancer. ☘️
Each year, that guy raised more and more money by doing fun gimmicks. He let people shave his head. He let people choose the style and color and ended up with an infamous pink mohawk. But most impressive he raffled off pieces from the JCT Wood Shop that he created!☘️
Well as you know, Cody is no longer with us and he is not able to raise the money he typically did. So I'm picking up the torch and coming out of retirement. I still don't have the follicles up top, but I've got a pretty substantial beard going so it's time to shave this bad boy off in solidarity and to raise funds. The goal is to one day conquer childhood cancer.☘️
As you know, my heart broke, along with my people, in October 2021 when Cody unexpectedly passed away at 34. We had just texted the night before and then he was ripped from us. And while that is devastatingly heartbreaking, I'm sure Cody would agree, that he got a lot more time than some of these children who have fought cancer. ☘️
So please take a moment and think about someone you loved and lost or you watched suffer from a cancer battle and think about how heartbreaking it is to think of children fighting. Please consider donating to our shaveathon. This one is for my grandma, this is for Drew, this is in place of Cody, and all those other ones out there who I don't even know. ☘️☘️
