CAZENOVIA — After a several-year hiatus, the annual St. Baldrick’s head-shaving fundraiser will return to Burton Street Elementary School at 37 Burton St. in Cazenovia on Sunday, April 24, 2022.

The national St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-driven charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives.

Since 2005, St. Baldrick’s events have helped raise $312 million for lifesaving childhood cancer research.

Participants can sign up on the St. Baldrick’s Cazenovia event page at stbaldricks.org and pledge to raise money to support childhood cancer research in exchange for shaving their heads to show solidarity with cancer patients who have lost their own hair.

On the day of the event, participants will be scheduled throughout the afternoon to have their heads shaved by professional barbers from Saving Face Barbershop in Manlius.

All shavees and their supporters are invited to Burton Street for the afternoon to enjoy the event.

The first St. Baldrick’s Cazenovia event was organized in 2012 by Molly Woodworth Huttar, who was a Cazenovia High School (CHS) student at the time.

This year, CHS junior Christopher Kelly is spearheading the initiative with help from his parents, Sean and Erin, who organized the event from 2014 to 2017 and raised a total of about $175,000.

“[The best part of the event is] the sense of unity, of people in our community coming together to help people they don’t even know,” said Kelly. “There’s a true feeling of joy in the room. Number two would probably be seeing girls and women shave — it’s so incredibly brave for anyone to shave their head, but for a female, it’s especially inspiring.”

The Kelly family first got involved with St. Baldrick’s when they participated as fundraisers and shavees at an event in Syracuse in 2012.

“It was such an uplifting experience that we began to think about hosting one in Cazenovia,” recalled Erin. “We’ve been fortunate that our family hasn’t been touched by childhood cancers, but many in our community have. Because the amount of money dedicated to children’s cancer research is so low, we thought we could draw on the strong community support and benefit the cause by bringing a St. Baldrick’s event to Cazenovia.”

Bringing the event back to the community this year was Kelly’s idea.

“With all of the division in our society and the sadness coming from the pandemic, I wanted to bring something positive to our community,” Kelly said. “Organizing the event is a lot of work and because my mom and dad are pretty busy and I’m older now, they encouraged me to take a bigger role in the process this year, since it was my idea to bring it back.”

The initial fundraising goal is $20,000.

To learn more about the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, visit stbaldricks.org.