In 2000, three New York City businessmen of Irish heritage decided to begin celebrating the St. Patrick’s holiday in a more charitable way.
Tim Kenny, John Bender and Enda McDonnell founded the worldwide St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which recruits sponsored individuals to shave their heads in public. The proceeds from the sponsorships are given to the National Children’s Cancer Foundation.
This year, St. Baldrick’s, which raised $2.1 million last year, will be brought to Baton Rouge and the University community for the first time when Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity pairs up with the charity to recruit people and raise money.
“We are going to have an event in front of the bookstore on campus, and this will get the TKE name out,” said Nick Uerie, a construction
management senior and the president of TKE. “We have been planning for this since around Christmas of 2003.”
According to Natalie Stammer of NCCF, the organization raises money for more than 200 cancer research institutes. Through the research, the money benefits about 90 percent of the 12,500 children diagnosed with cancer in the United States each year.
The worldwide goal amount for this year’s St. Baldrick’s charity is $3 million, from an expected 175 to 200 events.
With the help of Joe Bender, the brother of John Bender, one of the St. Baldrick’s founders and the manager of the Union Bookstore, and Ed Dawicki, the TKE house dad and a TKE alumnus, the fraternity will host an event at The Caterie March 12 and one outside of the Union Bookstore March 17.
So far, 12 “shavees” have registered for the Baton Rouge event, which is expected to raise about $3,000. About 20 to 30 more are expected to register on the St. Baldrick’s Web site beforehand, or volunteer on the days of the events.
“Part of having the heads shaved is to show a sign of solidarity with children going through cancer treatment,” said Dawicki. “That is certainly one more reason why having children and families attend the event would be a great idea. It really make[s] the children feel better, their families feel better, and the volunteers and sponsors see who they are helping through their efforts.”
According to Dawicki, in years to come, TKE and St. Baldrick’s would like to bring in some of the benefiting children and their families, but were not able to do so this year, because of time restraints.
Although St. Baldrick’s was founded around St. Patrick’s day, the events do not stop in March. According to Stammer, there are events as early as December and as late as March.
The St. Baldrick’s Web site, www.St.Baldrick’s.org, features a mascot, Lucky, a newsletter and a feature that allows individuals to sign up to be “shavees” or to sponsor a “shavee.”
Both Bender and Dawicki hope that through the pairing of TKE and St.Baldrick’s, they can make the Baton Rouge event one of the biggest in the country.