SigEp Shaves for a Cure
By: Joshua Palka, Michigan '11
On April 7th, 2010 forty-one members of the MI Alpha Chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon and willing volunteers got shaved for a good cause. At the first annual SigEp:Shaving for a Cure event, the undergraduate brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon raised over $10,000 by gathering donations from friends, family, and even some sororities in promise that we shaved our heads bald. This act of purposeful baldness is in solidarity with children suffering from cancer who lose their hair while undergoing treatments.
The St. Baldrick’s Foundation began on March 17, 2000, when reinsurance executives Tim Kenny, John Bender and Enda McDonnell turned their industry's St. Patrick's Day party into a benefit forkids with cancer. The three planned to raise " $17,000 on the 17th," recruiting 17 colleagues to raise $1,000 each to be shorn. Instead, the first St. Baldrick's event raised over $104,000! Today, the St. Baldrick’s Foundation is the number one distributor of grants besides the U.S. government to research programs targeting specifically children’s cancer research. In 2009, the St. Baldrick’s Foundation raised $16,650,843, and in 2010 they have already raised an astounding $17,379,054 in part to events likeShaving for a Cure.
The brothers of MI Alpha are excited to organize and host more annual shaving events to help raise money for research and awareness to help conquer kids' cancer. In addition to raising funds, the undergraduates plan to spend a day at the Mott’sChildren’s Hospital on April 25th, organizing and participating in activities with the children who suffer from this terrible disease. We hope to bring a bit of fun to the unexciting life that the hospital can sometimes have. Another way that SigEp-MI Alpha is "growing balanced leaders for the World's communities."
Contact Justin Palka at jjpalka@umich.edu as well as the following links for more information:
