Why am I shaving my head, and why should you care?

I am participating in this event in loving memory of all those I know who have suffered from and passed from cancer, including but not limited to my Grandfather Ed Dulik, my Uncle Ed Flowers, and my Father Dan Dulik.

A bit over a year ago, in September of 2023, I was at a Naperville North football game when I received the call: my father had passed out during a Volleyball game at All Saints, where he worked as Athletic Director. After getting to the hospital, we learned of the tumor he had in his liver, a very rare and highly aggressive cancer called Angiosarcoma. Over the next seven months he battled the illness in any way he could, through countless procedures, visiting an expert in Houston, and trying every treatment possible with one goal in mind: he didn’t want to just survive, he wanted to thrive. In many ways he achieved that, always being the light of the room he was in despite the constant hardships, making many of the nurses and people who took care of him feel like family, and making the most of the life he had left. But despite all of our efforts, my fathers condition continued to worsen until he decided to enter hospice, and just a few days after that on April 16th, 2024, he passed peacefully with family around him.

I have seen firsthand what cancer can do to a person and experienced what it can do to the people who care for them. As someone who loves working with kids, I cannot bear the thought of just how many children suffer from this terrible disease.

1 in 5 kids diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. won’t survive. For those who do, more than 96% have severe or life-threatening conditions by the time they are 50.

It doesn’t have to be this way, every dollar we are able to donate to children's cancer research is one step closer to a world where much less children have to suffer and much less families feel incomplete.

That world may be closer than you think, with your help we can build a better future for countless kids across the globe.