Hundreds Celebrate St. Baldrick's at Tommy's Place, Napper Tandy's

After losing his sister to cancer, Miller Place resident Edward Allen III has been raising money for cancer research for the past six years through Pedal For a Cure by hosting bike rides each year with his family.

After a work-related injury made him unable to ride, he was left searching for another way to help.

It was then that Allen found the St. Baldrick's Foundation. He decided to sign up to participate at in Miller Place, and upon hearing this, his father, Edward Allen Senior, was inspired to join as well, joined shortly after by son, Kevin Allen.

"Two years ago I got hurt at work and I can't ride so I felt like I wasn’t doing anything," he said. "Then I found this, I put it out on Facebook that I was going to do it and my father got my e-mail and said he wanted to do it with me. Together we did it as a team and my son came here just to support me and decided today at the last minute to shave his head."

Together, three generations of Allens got their head's shaved in solidarity in what was a touching moment for the family. The Allens, however, were just three of hundreds of participants between Napper Tandy's and (with over 100 participants there alone) to join in on the mass-shaving.

"If you really think about it, it doesn’t take much to donate your hair," said Charlie McKenna. McKenna helped organize the event at Tommy's Place and he and his family have been involved with St. Baldrick's for 10 years.

"Maybe you don’t raise a lot of money but what you’re doing also is raising awareness," he continued. "If you’re walking around and someone asks you ‘what happened to your hair?’ and you tell them what you’re doing and what it’s all about, that’s somebody else that’s thinking about it now that wasn’t thinking about it before."

Members of local fire departments and local correctional officers flooded Tommy's to get their head's shaved early in the day. At night, 15 members of the Mt. Sinai fire department participated along with hundreds more residents.

"One of the guys has done it the past two years and we kind of hopped on and got a whole group together to do it," said Shawn Miller, one of the 15 volunteers from Mt. Sinai. "It’s definitely a great event."

The event was the seventh held at Tommy's and first at the Miller Place Napper Tandy's. Over $200,000 was raised at all Napper Tandy's locations and tens of thousands were raised at Tommy's alone. The foundation recently reached the $100 million mark and has already raised $11 million this year. McKenna said they expect to raise $50 million this year alone.

"We have events throughout the year not just around St. Patrick’s Day," McKenna said. "Now we’re starting to get into other events. My nephew just finished a 150-mile marathon in the mountains of Chile and personally raised over $10,000. We had five guys last year that climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, they’re dedicating their efforts to St. Baldrick’s. This event at Tommy's is growing and we’re going to be adding more events throughout the next couple of years."

McKenna said that St. Baldrick's will be coming to Port Jefferson next year and will incorporate Stony Brook University.

For updated information on funds raised at the events, you can check throughout te week at Tommy's event page and Nappers Tandy's page here.