St. Baldrick's event organizer works to find a cure

The organizer for the local St. Baldrick’s Foundation event is hoping to raise a lot of money and lose a lot of hair to find a cure for cancer.

Submitted photo

The local fundraising event is at 2 p.m. March 16 at Pritchard Community Center in Elizabethtown. This is the third year the foundation, which raises money to fight childhood cancer, has hosted a local event.

Participants shave their heads in the event after pledging donations for the foundation. Organizer Tessa Wilkinson is hoping for 100 participants to shave their heads this year and to raise $10,000, a goal the event achieved last year.

Wilkinson and her family first became involved with the event because her father is a renal and oncology nurse. But while it started as a charity he was involved in, it has taken on a lot of personal meaning for Wilkinson.

“This has really just become a passion of mine,” she said.

Her involvement even surprises her, as she never expected this to become an event she would organize yearly. She hopes one day the event will be unnecessary.

“I plan this every year so we don’t have to plan it anymore,” she said.

Those interested in raising money can go to the Elizabethtown event webpage at www.stbaldricks.org/events/mypage/5722/2013. There, participants can sign up for the event and donate money. Money raised goes to the foundation, which then funnels it into grants for organizations working on cures and gentler treatments for childhood cancers.

“It’s wanting to see a change in the world and a change in childhood cancer and wanting to see it obliterated,” Wilkinson said.

Kelly Cantrall can be reached at (270) 505-1747 or kcantrall@thenewsenterprise.com.