For the past three years, the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity at Oakland University has been participating in Shave for St. Jude events.  Each year, they have raised more money to help the many families affected by childhood cancer.

The past two years, the only people to participate in the head shaving were members of TKE. 

A few select members would set a goal of how much money they wanted to fundraise before they would shave their head. If they met the goal, their head was shaved. If they didn’t meet their goal, many still shaved their heads.

This year was slightly different, since TKE asked other members of the Oakland University Greek community to participate.  

TKE’s Jake Gora, Brandon Toncray and Jack Sicheneder all set goals of $750. Alpha Sigma Phi’s Brandon Walker set a goal of $2,000 and two ladies from Alpha Sigma Tau sorority, Paige Stefan and Katie Czajkowski, set a combined goal of $4,000.  

Hair stylists Beth and Amber from Great Clips came to Oakland’s campus on Thursday, April 7 for the event and donated their services for free.

“The first year I was just going to pledge and didn’t set a goal, I just looked at my brothers and said I’ll shave my head,” Toncray, three-time participant, said.

Along with these original goal setters, a member from OUTV and TKE’s Travis Kersten also decided to shave their heads for St. Jude.

All of the TKE members who signed up did end up shaving their heads.

Stefan and Czajkowski were the first and only two ladies to sign up for this event.  They did not end up meeting their goal, but Stefan donated 12 inches of hair to Wigs for Kids to make a wig for a child with cancer. 

“If they raise a grand total of $7,000 then I’ll still shave my head,” Katie Czajkowski said. 

“If it’s like $6,995 I’d still do it, but if it is anything under $6,500 I won’t be shaving my head.”

Erin Watson, employee of St. Jude’s fundraising office, gave a brief speech and stated that no family ever receives a bill from St. Jude.

St. Jude feels that families should be caring for their child and not worrying about bills and debt. Seventy-five percent of donations are donated by public contributions.

Before the head shaving began, TKE sold pizza, cupcakes and raffle tickets to fundraise a bit more for participants who had not yet reached their goals. 

In the end, Tau Kappa Epsilon at Oakland University raised a grand total of $6,300.61 for St. Jude.

For more information, you can find Tau Kappa Epsilon on GrizzOrgs or go to www.stjude.org.