file photo: 2017 St. Baldrick’s event
This month, Wilton High School is hosting its annual St. Baldrick’s celebration, the yearly fundraiser to fight childhood cancer, inviting students and faculty to raise money and awareness with a very visible commitment–participants in a St. Baldrick’s event shave their heads in exchange for donations towards cancer research.
The WHS event will take place on March 13 at 6:30 p.m., in the school cafeteria. The students have a surprisingly fun time losing their locks, knowing that what they’re doing helps support other children in need. Music fills the room as multiple barbers razor off the students’ hair, as the kids cheer one another on.
“While battling cancer, children lose not only their hair but also years of their childhood, and sometimes their lives. In these challenging economic times, cancer does not stop and your efforts go even further,” writes WHS senior Johnny Maggio in a fundraising letter. Maggio is one of the organizers of this year’s event and someone who has shaved his head three years in a row.
Wilton High School students started holding a St. Baldrick’s fundraiser in 2007 for an area child diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma at age 2, who is now cancer free. For the first two years Wilton participated with the Fairfield-based TeamBrent, but eventually students created a Wilton High School offshoot in 2009.
The first St. Baldrick’s Foundation event was held in 2000, and since then has raised well over $50 million with over 390,000 heads shaved in 18 countries.
Anyone interested in supporting the soon-to-be-shaved students can visit the WHS event webpage to donate online. And as the organizing committee writes, “Watch the hair fly!”
St. Baldrick’s Foundation 2018 organizing committee: Johnny Maggio, Kyle Shifrin, Owen McKessy, Michael Hueglin, Ryan Ettie, Patrick Verrilli, Christian Weber, Scott Verrilli, August Theoharides, Dominick Polito and Connor Burke