The second year participating. Provided the event is not during another monsoon (like last year) everyone should come out for the shaving. I will have the girls with me, so come by and say hi! Everyone dig deep, last year we raised a bunch of money and here is a note that Lara from the foundation sent me a few months ago: Dear Christopher, I saw your photo of Natalie on the St. Baldrick's website and was so glad to see she's cancer free! Thank you for sharing her story and allowing her to inspire people to join the fight against childhood cancer, so that one day every child can be cancer free. You know that the St. Baldrick's Foundation shaves heads to honor kids with cancer by raising awareness and funds. But the most important thing we can do to honor them is to fund research to save lives - now and in years to come. So in honor of Natalie, I wanted to take a minute to let you know about some grants we are currently funding that might be of special interest to you. Right now we are funding 3 Fellows, 1 Scholar, 4 other grant recipients, and several Children's Oncology Group laboratories for neuroblastoma. Our total multi-year funding commitments to these recipients is $1,769,669. In addition, we are currently funding over $8.6 million in grants that are not specific to one disease type, but will help all children with cancer - including neuroblastoma. The total we granted last fall was over $2.2 million, and another $11.5 million in June - and the next round of grants is coming up this fall. One of the most exciting grants we've made this year is $500,000 toward a project to sequence the neuroblastoma cancer genome. Just as the Human Genome Project was groundbreaking, so is this grant, because no pediatric cancer has been sequenced in this way before. As the researcher says, "The importance of this project is to detect and understand the genetic mutations unique to the process of tumor formation in childhood through an unbiased near-global sequencing strategy of over 20,000 genes in the human genome." I would be happy to send you more information on this project or any of our other grants, if you'd like. All St. Baldrick's grants are awarded based on the scientific rating of experts. Our goals are not just to understand cancer better, but to find better treatments and improve the quality of life for patients and survivors. You can always visit our website to see more about our current researchers and a short description of their work or our grant types and a list of recipients by state. If you're interesting in knowing more details about any of our grants, please don't hesitate to let me know by reply email, or call our toll-free line at (888) 899-2253, and ask for me at extension 14. We also invite you to submit artwork, poetry or other creative efforts from your child or family members. These may be used to thank special donors or for something like our Facebook campaign, featuring art from kids affected by cancer every day in September, Childhood Cancer Month. For more information, please contact me! Thank you for letting Natalie inspire so many people to make a difference for kids with cancer. Warmest regards, Lara