'Big hearts' shave heads

Cancer awareness event exceeds expectations.

By Allie Blood

Published April 22, 2008

To raise money and awareness for children with cancer, Columbia residents and MU students shaved their heads Saturday at McNally’s.

St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a charity benefiting research for children’s cancer, sponsored the event. Michelle Beckering, a senior on the MU women’s rugby team, organized the event after she had a positive experience with the charity last year.

“I shaved my head at a St. Baldrick’s event in St. Louis last April,” Beckering said. “I had such a positive experience that I wanted to introduce St. Baldrick’s to Columbia.”

Beckering said St. Baldrick’s is an international organization and the celebrations in St. Louis and Kansas City have been growing in recent years. In April 2007, more than 200 people shaved their heads for cancer awareness in St. Louis, Beckering said.

Columbia’s first St. Baldrick’s event raised between $6,500 and $7,000, Beckering said. The goal was $4,000. Nine people signed up prior to the event, six women and three men, and an additional six people volunteered at the event, totaling 10 women and five men.

“Five out of the 10 girls were able to make a double donation to Locks of Love,” Beckering said.

Locks of Love is a charity that makes wigs for cancer patients from donated hair.

Women’s rugby player Sam Cross said she came out to the event to support the two players who shaved their heads this year.

“It’s important to raise awareness and get the word out there,” Cross said. “Plus they’re raising so much money.”

The first person to shave her hair was former MU student Andrea Tessler, who decided to support the cause in memory of a friend named Bobby Held who lost his life to a brain tumor when he was nine. Tessler’s mother works in ophthalmology, so Tessler wanted to share part of her mom’s daily experience.

“The world is made better by people with big hearts,” Tessler said.

Freshman Molly Steelman shaved her head for a second time on Saturday. Steelman was involved with the charity through her high school student council for three years.

“I decided to become more involved and actually do it,” Steelman said. “I saw the impact of it.”

In March, Steelman encouraged her friend to donate with her, and together they raised over $2,500 for St. Baldrick’s.

The hair stylist that shaved all the heads was Krystina Ryder from St. Louis. She shaved her head last year after meeting a nine-year-old who shaved her head for the same charity.

“She said to her mom that she knew kids at school would make fun of her, but she didn’t care because it was a good cause,” Ryder said. “That really inspired me.”

This year, St. Baldrick’s raised more than $13 million, compared to just more than $12 million last year, according to the organization’s Web site. This was the first year Columbia has hosted an event for the charity, but Beckering said she hopes to have an annual event to promote the charity.