I Went Katy Perry Pink to Fight Childhood Cancer

Pink ... with 'tude

It's easy to forget your hair is pink. It's up on top of my head, not right in front of my face!

And then I notice someone staring at me, staring, usually, at the top of my head. And I remember. Sometimes they're rude. Sometimes they're curious. Those are the ones I like the best.

I lean over and explain.
I shave my head every year for the St. Baldrick's Foundation, which works to fight children's cancer. And every year, it gets harder to fundraise.

The first year, it was easy. Here in Sullivan County, in tiny Jeffersonville, we raised $10,000.

Since then I've joined other shaving events, where I wasn't in charge, and I've managed to go over the $1,000 mark myself. But every year, I lose donors. I get it, the economy is tough. But childhood cancer is tougher.

These are kids. Sick kids.

So I do crazy things. Last year it was a mohawk. It was supposed to be green, but a bathroom dye job didn't work out so well. So it was just the Mohawk.

This year, with the St. Baldrick's event organized by Lisa Chesney at the Roscoe Firehouse coming at me (it's September 8), I needed a new hook.

Pink.

Katy Perry pink.

Thanks to my dear friend Beth Bernitt at Mane Street Styles in North Branch -- I learned my bathroom dye job lesson -- it is indeed pink. Little girls have told me I look like Strawberry Shortcake. Adult women have told me I rock. And a couple in their mid-70s stopped at the light with me on a New York Street over the weekend debated exactly what shade of pink it was (the wife said fuschia, the husband was going for hot pink).

I am OK with it all. They can stare. They can talk.

As long as they'll let me explain why. I'm a walking, talking marketing tool working to eradicate childhood cancer.

Will you help me kick cancer's butt? Donate at St. Baldrick's! 


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