Head-Shaving

Melissa’s Letter: ‘What I Am Doing and Why I Am Doing It’

by Emily Kilpatrick, St. Baldrick's Foundation
April 17, 2014

Be a shavee and raise money for childhood cancer research.

Ten-year-old Melissa M. is shaving her head on May 2.

Her mom, Megan, is also a shavee. “I had already decided I was going to participate,” Megan said, “and she popped up out of the blue and told me she was going to participate, too.”

Melissa-St-Baldricks

Melissa is shaving her head with her mom at a St. Baldrick’s head-shaving event this May.

Knowing that Melissa might miss her long hair, her mom asked her to think it over before signing up for the head-shaving event.

Melissa did think about it. Then she wrote her mom a letter:

I plan on shaving my head for St. Baldrick’s. I will also raise money. If people think I look weird, I won’t care because I know I did it for a good cause.

What I will be doing is I will raise for a while. I will set goals and then shave it off. And I am doing this because I sort of knew someone with cancer and she was a survivor.

I lost one of my daycare ladies to cancer, and a girl at our church died to cancer. I am doing this for the people who have it who have survived it or lost their fight.

I am not doing it to be popular around school. I don’t want to be that super popular kid just because I shaved my head.

I know it will be a while before I grow some hair back, but I am not going to change my mind. I will shave my head, and I will be proud to have no hair. People can make fun of me all they want, but I know what I did and why I did it!

Melissa-letter

Ten-year-old Melissa wrote a letter to her mom about why she wanted to shave with St. Baldrick’s. “If people think I look weird, I won’t care because I know I did it for a good cause,” Melissa wrote.

Last year, Melissa’s brother Jeep shaved his head at a St. Baldrick’s event and raised $3,335. Melissa is hoping to outdo her brother’s fundraising total. She is gaining ground with $1,770 raised so far.

Donate to Melissa’s shave on her participant page.

You can shave your head, too. Sign up to be a shavee, or see other ways to get involved.

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