Students shave their heads for charity

CANTON — Twenty-five students are walking around St. Lawrence University with bald heads.

Students from across majors and academic years got together Friday afternoon to shave their heads and donate their hair to Wigs for Kids. They also raised more than $10,000 to donate to various cancer charities.

One student, Maya T. Cameron-Gilsey, was responsible for more than $8,000 of that money through her personal website.

"I haven't had close family with cancer," she said. "I did find out two weeks ago that a close friend of mine does have cancer, and she lost her hair today. I think this is a great way to give back."

Ms. Cameron-Gilsey raised so much, in fact, that she was labeled a scam artist by a blogger on Reddit until a reporter from another blog site, Gawker, contacted her to set the record straight late Thursday. When her boyfriend first called to say she had been labeled a fraud, she thought she could ignore it. Then she decided to prove she was not trying to con people out of their money, and the donations started flooding in, she said.

"I've been receiving donations from 7:30 this morning, and it's probably been every five seconds," the senior child psychology major said. "I think I'll get my $10,000 goal. I'd given up hope. I was really happy with $4,000."

Ms. Cameron-Gilsey has been raising money since early December to donate to the Golisano Children's Hospital in Syracuse. The money will be split between two funds at the hospital: Paige's Family Assistance Fund, which helps families afford some of the additional costs of treatment, and the Kids with Cancer Fund, which buys games for children to help distract them.

"I wanted to know exactly where my money was going," she said. "I wanted to do something for the north country because this is where I've been a student for four years."

The other 24 students who also shaved their heads raised $3,200, according to sophomore Mark A. Delaney, a member of the Pre-Health Club at the university. That money is being donated to St. Baldrick's, a charity that funds childhood cancer research.

"I was a little nervous, but it grows back," sophomore Shannon C. Smith said after getting rid of her shoulder-length hair. "Anything I can do to fight any type of cancer is great. I'm so excited — very quick showers."

Not all of the students who shaved their heads had hair that was long enough to donate; several men with shorter hair did it in a show of solidarity, some mentioning friends or relatives who had died or recently undergone treatment for cancer.

It was a trained professional shaving the 25 heads: Tina Wiley, owner of The Hair Studio in Potsdam, donated her skills to make sure no students were running around with uneven buzz cuts.

The Pre-Health Club started asking for people to volunteer to shave their heads at the end of the fall semester, sticking notes in people's on-campus mailboxes and asking friends.

"People asked me, I think jokingly, if I would shave my head and I said yes," Miss Smith said. "It's nice to do something to give back."