Two Merrill Rotary members voluntarily sent bald for a good cause recently. Mike Nolan and Dean Elbe had their heads shaved during a Rotary meeting to raise funds for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, an organization that supports research to fight childhood cancers.
When the challenge for donations went out, Rotary members responded by pledging $2,000 in short order.
Elbe, himself a survivor of childhood cancer, noted that the efforts of organizations like St. Baldrick’s have greatly improved the outlook for children diagnosed with cancer.
“Pediatric cancer research has come so incredibly far in the last 30 years,” Elbe said. “The cancer I had was a death sentence 30 years ago.”
St. Baldrick’s sponsors head-shaving events all over the world with proceeds going to support pediatric cancer research. St. Baldrick’s donors and volunteers made possible over $14 million in funding for childhood cancer research in 2010.