With fellow students, friends and family cheering her on, Elizabeth Swanberg found herself in a close shave last Friday.
The Catherine Blaine 8th grader took the stage in the school’s cafeteria and made good on her pledge to shave her long hair in return for donations to help fund cancer research and treatment.
While the final amount was still being tallied, Swanberg said she raised more than $3,500 in pledges and enjoyed plenty of support in her campaign to raise money for research.
A festive crowd of about 60 people, including many of her fellow students, watched as Swanberg took her seat on the stage and was wrapped in a barber sheet.
While Swanberg got situated, Kelly Forebaugh, a family friend and whose 6-year-old son, Jackson, was Swanberg’s inspiration for raising money through the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, talked to the crowd. She introduced Jackson, who was running about the crowd, and announced that he has been cancer-free for the past five years. She also talked about the importance of the research being funded by St. Baldrick’s unorthodox money-raising strategy of having people shave their heads for the charity.
Also addressing the crowd was Dr. Jessica Pollard, an attending physician at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center whose research is partially funded by St. Baldrick’s. She told the crowd that a child is diagnosed with cancer every three and a half minutes. She said that a total of about 160,000 children are diagnosed with the deadly disease each year around the world. One in five of those children will not survive.
But Pollard said with the help of St. Baldrick’s and other charities, those odds are expected to improve. Pollard said that since 2000, St. Baldrick’s has raised $95 million for research, $22 million in 2010, alone.
Once the introductions were over, Louisa Cryan, 13, who is recuperating from Leukemia, took the electric clippers and went to work on Swanberg’s braided hair.
Cryan said this was the sixth person she had shaved and she showed her expert form, sheering right through Swanberg’s locks until only a slight stubble remained. When the cutting was done, Swanberg stood up, raised her hands in triumph and then gave a small scream as she felt her bald head.
“You look like a Shao Lin master,” a beaming Irene Swanberg said to her daughter.
“It’s so weird,” Elizabeth Swanberg told to the crowd. “I’m so used to feeling my hair.”
After posing for pictures and accepting dozens of hugs, Swanberg took a quick victory run through a few Catherine Blaine hallways, enjoying her new hairdo.
Said the excited teen, “It is so strange to feel the wind on my head!”
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