Losing locks to raise cancer awareness

What we’re able to do to help people is beautiful.”

John Wiesenberg Teacher, South Side Middle School

As the Rockville Centre St. Patrick’s Day Parade ended in front of St. Agnes Cathedral last Saturday afternoon, many attendees filed into the church’s Parish Center to take part in another charitable activity. The St. Baldrick’s program was back, drawing a crowd of a few hundred, who were willing to have their heads shaved and donate to children’s cancer research.

Village residents made up more than 50 teams and raised over $264,000 for the effort to make cancer more survivable for children. The National Cancer Institute estimates that in 2022, 15,590 children and adolescents, from those under a year old to age 19, will be diagnosed with cancer, and 1,780 will die of the disease.

At the event, Greta Ohanian, 23, used the lectern on the Parish Center stage to thank the community for supporting people like her. Ohanian was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2015, but the cancer went into remission while she was being treated at Winthrop University Hospital.

“Donating a little bit may not seem like a lot,” Ohanian said, “but all these donations pulled together can fund a research idea, which can turn into a study and a clinical trial, and this trial can give a kid with cancer hope.”

Ohanian said she had been coming to the fundraiser since 2016.

The outlook for children and teens with cancer has improved over the past few decades. The National Cancer Institute reported that improved treatments that started in the 1960s and ’70s raised the five-year survival rate for children 14 and younger who were diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia from 57 percent in 1975 to 92 percent in 2012. The five-year survival rate for children diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma shot up from 43 percent in 1975 to 91 percent in 2012.

Oceanside resident Charlie Howell, 11, and his team raised $1,675 by going bald. “In second grade, my teacher started doing [St. Baldrick’s], and I saw a bunch of my friends getting involved and I said, next year I want to do that,” Charlie said. “So the next year I raised around $10,000, started doing it and never stopped.”

Now a sixth-grader at Oceanside School No. 4, Charlie said he has gotten used to that first step outside after having his head shaved and not having the wind go through his hair.

This year, Charlie, his little brother, Liam, and his friends Kenny Abel, Carter Quintero and Joey Petraro were inspired by Lili Callahan, a girl who has traveled back and forth across the country as she battles glioblastoma, and has documented her experience on social media with the hashtag “#LILISTRONG.”

South Side Middle School social studies teacher John Wiesenberg was back for his sixth year as master of ceremonies for the event, encouraging members of the audience to give donations while the three barber chairs on the stage were occupied.

“What we’re able to do to help people is beautiful,” Wiesenberg said. “Sometimes you work for a paycheck, but I consider this working for your soul.” Wiesenberg and the organizers hosted a virtual event last year, but he said they were excited to be back in person.

The gathering also gave participants the chance to remember some local children who were lost to cancer. Among them were Gina Giallombardo, Gabriella Pellicani and Mary Ruchalski, all from Rockville Centre, who now have local charities in their memories that aim to continue to raise survival rates for children and teens.