Health & Fitness
St. Baldrick's: ENMS Team Leader John Braun
Meet John Braun, an 8-year St. Baldrick's shavee who dons a green mohawk each year to raise awareness for this great cause.
East Northport Middle School Science teacher John Braun has become a local St. Baldrick's icon. How can you miss him with that green mohawk?!
Well, there's more there than meets the eye. Here's his story about how he became involved and why he continues to participate in St. Baldrick's:
I started participating in St. Baldrick’s 8 years ago, in memory of my best friend’s older brother, Matthew Morris. Matt passed away from cancer when I was in middle school. He was like a brother to me and the Morris family is like a second family to me. This inspired me to spread the word about childhood cancer research.
The first year I shaved, it was just going to be a small thing for me, in tribute of my friend’s brother. I ended up being so touched from the amazing support from the students and staff at East Northport Middle School and raising much more money than I ever thought possible. We even had me shave my head on our morning announcements—Tiger TV.
As the years went on there were different reasons to continue to spread the word about St. Baldrick’s and the amazing work that they do. There were families in our Northport-East Northport School District that were directly affected by cancer, like the Campos. To this day I honor Alec Campo when I fundraise for St. Baldrick’s.
I started having The Mohawk because students and staff members said they would have participated in St. Baldrick's had they known about it. So I came up with a way to “remind” people of what was going on. I try to have the green Mohawk for two weeks before the event to raise awareness. This has been pretty successful each year—with our team consisting of 50 or more students and staff. And in 2012 we doubled our goal in fundraising!!
I could not be more proud of our ENMS students—now they are asking me about the event long before March comes around and our students are continuing to be involved—even the ones that have moved on to the high school level! We are looking forward to another year of the getting the word out there and having our ENMS students being involved in an amazing and inspiring community event.
Please check out the ENMS Bald Tigers team website!
http://www.stbaldricks.org/teams/mypage/81725/2013
