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COVID-19 did not stop second-year students in the 3+3 program, Emma Morales and Evan Bell, from shaving their heads for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation.

The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that fundraises for childhood cancer research. The Student Programming Board (SPB) and Quinnipiac Irish Club co-sponsor an event each year where students are encouraged to raise money and/or shave their heads to support childhood cancer. The event is usually held on the Mount Carmel Campus in Burt Khan Court and local barbers are brought in to shave the volunteers’ heads, however this year the event happened a little differently.

On Monday, March 30, SPB announced on Instagram that even though the in-person event was canceled, students are still encouraged to donate to the cause and help them reach a goal of $5,000. Morales and Bell shaved their heads on Instagram live with the help of their family members.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-X9FWjlYy1/

“When this event went virtual, we were [not] able to do tabling, which limited the amount of people we could reach to donate physical money rather than just online with our link,” SPB Traditions and Community Chair and the lead organizer of the event Shannon Flaherty said. “It also limited how we were able to recruit shavees, the people who shave their heads.”

Initially, the event was going to have a pie-a-friend fundraiser, where students who didn’t want to shave their heads could have volunteered to have a pie smashed on their faces for a donation to the foundation; however, Flaherty claimed that having a virtual event had some benefits.

“I feel like the benefit of going online though is with our livestream, we reached over 430 different people when I looked back at the engagements on Instagram, and I feel like that’s more than the amount who would’ve come out to Burt Kahn honestly,” Flaherty said.

Morales and Bell shaved their heads, live on Instagram at 9:30 p.m. on Monday. They both decided to do it because they were inspired by the “shavees” last year.

“I think I kind of got interested in it last year after seeing how big of an event it was and seeing the whole rugby team do it,” Bell said. “That got me interested and then joining SPB I really felt like it was something that I should do.”

Morales raised $1,388, and Bell raised $229 for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation.

“Just because we aren’t on the physical campus doesn’t mean that we have to not, one, follow through with the promise that we made, not only to ourselves but like a bunch of our friends and family and then two, it is really good still to be able to be a visible source of just because the world is like stopping right now, doesn’t mean that we need to,” Morales said.

The President of the Student Programming, Joshua Sprague, was happy about the two shavees’ commitment to the cause.

“It spoke to their commitment to the cause because this is definitely a big decision to make. You’re shaving your head, you’re completely altering your appearance, which definitely especially like [in] this day and age can be a hard decision to make, because of how image-focused we have kind of become as a society.” Sprague said.

The Student Programming Board has raised $2812 so far and the fundraising page is still up for donations.

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