Gifts, Large and Small

There are so many reasons we love St. Baldrick’s. Of course, the very necessary research they fund is the main one. But these events and the shavees give us so much more than that.

Here are some of the gifts, large and small, we’ve received from our involvement with St. Baldrick’s this year.

There are tangible gifts, actual boxes that arrived in the mail and were excitedly torn open:

And then there are the gifts that could never pack up and mail, no matter how big the box. One middle school boy, who’s shaving at our event, is honoring his aunt who died nearly one year to the day of March 11. He originally set a goal of $500 but, upon seeing the reaction of his friends and family, quickly raised it to $1000 and had now increased it to $1,500. The husband of one of my best friends is also shaving, as part of Team Gallagher at AJ Rocco’s (along with Mark and my brother Kirk). This friend said he would happily have donated $1,000 on his own if he could, but since he can’t, he’ll raise it instead. And raise it has, in a mere 24 hours.

And there are more gifts, sometimes in place of gifts: One of the six shavees from St Paul’s Cooperative Preschool had his 5th birthday party over the weekend and requested donations to St Baldrick’s in lieu of presents.

The youngest shavee in our group, my four-year-old nephew Van, has spawned an event of his own. The staff at his day care were so inspired by what he was doing that they’ve organized a pancake breakfast to be held the day before our head-shaving, to which all the families have been invited. Austin and I will attend also so I can give a short talk. They’re making frosting faces on the pancakes so they’ll resemble perfectly oval bald heads. All the money they raise, which they predict could be $500, will be donated on Van’s head in honor of his effort. Austin loves pancakes and, as you an see from his St Baldrick’s Valentine (which was posted on their Twitter feed last week), he loves bald people too:

There are currently nine students from Fairfax Elementary shaving their heads alongside Braedan, seven of them his second grade classmates. Last night at dinner, he was asking how much each kid had raised and I told him that some of them were still just beginning and didn’t have much or any money yet. Without missing a beat, he said, “I think I should give some money to them. Maybe one dollar each.” So tonight, my sweet charitable eight-year-old, will hand over some crumpled dollar bills (and a lot of coins) while I go through every page and place single dollar donations with my credit card. Love that boy.

And then there’s Mrs Glasier, fourth grade teacher at Fairfax, who set an extremely ambitious goal of raising $10,000. I will admit that I tried to talk her down to something more easily attainable, but she wouldn’t hear it. She’s only a small way there but this is a determined woman and I trust that she will keep asking, begging, pleading, cajoling and threatening until she reaches that goal, even if it’s not until after the event.

Another teacher in on the act (though not in the shaving kind of way!) is the boys’ preschool teacher who has insisted on going through and making a small donation on the individual pages of each current or former student and their siblings. I had suggested she could save a lot of time by making a few bigger donations, perhaps one to Team Austin and one to Team Fairfax, but no, she said she wanted each child to see their amount go up and see her name in their online lists of donors. She has spent years working with young children, after all, and she knows them well.

There’s another woman shaving at our event alongside her young daughter, who emailed to see if I knew any child who has or had cancer who might want to help shave her head. Huh, do I ever! I told her I couldn’t guarantee the quality of Austin’s head-shaving skills but she didn’t bat an eye (this obviously isn’t for the vain).

So, we receive these gifts large and small, a dollar here, a dollar there. One more shavee registered today and another tomorrow. One more sign of love and support for us and for all the others who’ve traveled this road before and all those who will travel it after us. It all adds up to something big and powerful.