‘A little less Britney, a little more Sinead’
Students shave their head for cancer
Chelse McKee, Staff
Photo by Chelse McKee
Danika Moyer is all too familiar with the devastating affects of cancer.
“A bandmate of mine, her mom’s going through chemo for the second time for breast cancer and my great aunt is terminal right now with two tumors in her brain. I lost two of my grandparents to cancer, too. It hits home pretty hard, actually.”
Now Danika stands, smiling, after having her hair shaved off for the Halloween Brave the Shave, put on by the Youth Advisory Council (YAC), an extension of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF).
“I’m not going to look in the mirror for about a week and then when I finally decide to look in it, I’m going to cry a little,” Moyer said, laughing.
Brave the Shave was the first event put on by YAC since they began in 2004. YAC is a volunteer-based committee established in the Prairies-North West Territories chapter of the CBCF. Its objective is to provide a youth perspective on issues relating to fundraising and awareness for breast cancer.
“We chose head-shaving because it’s symbolic of what a breast cancer patient has to go through,” said Kara Bronsch, the co-ordinator for YAC. “We want to demonstrate that it’s not something to be ashamed of,” she explained.
Bronsch explained why YAC waited to put on its first event:“We’ve kind of been waiting for quite some time to have an event that’s strictly put on and organized by the Youth Advisory Council.”
The fundraiser was put on at two prairie universities, the University of Alberta and the University Manitoba. The U of M, with 20 participants, raised $700, while the U of A raised $3,000 with eight participants. Between the two schools, the event raised almost $4,000.
In 2006, a reported $8.5 million was donated to charitable organizations. Manitoba had $407,691 in donations, equating to an average of $310. The national level of donations increased by 8.3 per cent from 2005, while the number of contributors decreased by 1.4 per cent to 5.8 million.
Currently the YAC has no other plans for fundraisers this year. Bronsch explained that the council was focusing attention on the world conference happening in Winnipeg in June.
In 2007, according to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, 22,300 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 5,300 will die from the disease. A hundred and seventy men will be affected by the disease and 50 will die from the cancer.