I've spent the last month and a half knocking down doors trying to convince a lot of broke people to give me money so I could shave my head.
Even in a bad economy, I hit my small goal of $1,000 raised for the St. Baldrick's Foundation - so you can all laugh at my very bald head.
Ready for it?
Yes, that's me, bald. My head got stuck on my pillow Saturday night, and I can officially clean out from under my nails just by rubbing my fingers across my scalp, but it was worth it.
I'm a hero for kids with cancer. Everyone who shaved their heads during this St. Baldrick's season is a hero. So is everyone who pulled out their wallets and gave - whether it was $1 or $1,00.
In many ways, the smaller amounts meant all that much more - because they came from people I knew were struggling this year. As one fellow shavee told me at a firehouse last week where twenty firemen came together like a true band of brothers and shaved their heads - "people still believe in a good cause."
I walked down the line among men who get out of bed in the middle of the night to rush out in their turnout gear and run into burning buildings, men who are used to ragging on the reporter just because they can, and they were shy, quiet. "Anything for the kids," they admitted. I nodded. "No, anything," one man said, looking me straight in the eye.
Most of us will do anything for their kids. But kids overall? I have to shave my head every year - not because my daughter has cancer (thank goodness) - but because I can't look a sick child in the eyes and not see my daughter standing there. I can't hear the story of a child stricken with a leptomenengial tumor at three and not think, Oh my God, my daughter is only three. I can't turn off the mother in me when I hear about children's cancer.
There are hundreds of other charities - worthy charities - but I'm a parent. So I pick this one. And every year, for as long as I'm still growing hair, I'll give it up, hoping that some day, one day, that $2, $25, $100 I talked out of someone, will change another parent's world.
Want to donate on someone's head? Check out the St. Baldrick's Foundation website and see if anyone you know shaved their head this year.
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