March 30, 2012
With more than 68 volunteers on St. John’s Queens and Staten
Island campuses, the University hosted its most successful
St. Baldrick’s Foundation Locks of Love event benefitting children
with cancer.
Volunteers
share their heads and cut their hair in donating the locks
to help weave wigs for cancer patients. Raising over $27,900 thus
far, through donations raised by those participants, St. John’s
University will donate 100 percent of the proceeds to the
foundation.
“I think it’s great. There’s
obviously a lot of excitement, you see a lot of people come out to
see their friends cut their hair. In some cases, if they know an
administrator or a professor they come out to cheer them on,” said
Jack Flynn, Director of Student Conduct at St. John’s.
Flynn was a participant and was
amazed at the huge turnout of students and community members at the
Queens campus event, held in the living room area of the school’s
D’Angelo Center. “I think it’s a great atmosphere and I think it’s
a great event. It gets bigger every year. The reason I participated
was for of very good friend of mine’s daughter who has been
diagnosed with Leukemia --so I’m doing it for her.”
On hand at this year’s event was St.
Baldrick’s Foundation founder John Bender and St. John’s alum
‘87CBA. “We just hope that people who participate today think it’s
so meaningful, that when they go around, they are like a walking
advertisement for the cause,” noted Bender.
Nearly 400 people attended the events
to support the volunteers for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. Twenty
three Locks of Love were collected on the day including four women
who totally shaved their heads.
Among them was the father and daughter pair of Tiffany and
Felix Marmol who both shaved their heads for the cause. Rev. Joseph
V. Daly C.M., a St. John’s University Vincentian priest, also
assisted with the shaving of one of this year’s participants. The
donations from volunteers who cut off approximately ten inches
f their hair will be used
to make wigs for those who have lost their locks while undergoing
treatments for cancer.
DiRosa Haircrafters of Franklin
Square, NY and Deluxe Barbers of Jamaica, NY for the third time
donated their time and talent to those participating in the Queens
event. On Staten Island,St. John’s alumna Denise Arango-Schiera,
who owns and manages Great Clips Hair Salons, donated her business’
services to make-over those shaving their heads for St.
Baldrick’s.
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For media inquiries, please contact
Dominic Scianna, Assistant Vice President for Media Relations at
St. John’s by calling (718) 990-6185 or by email to sciannad@stjohns.edu