Engineering head shave raises over $40,000 dollars to fight cancer

The annual engineering head shave where students and faculty cut their hair to raise money for the fight against cancer, is seeing one of its most successful years despite the current COVID-19 pandemic. 

Hosted by the Engineering Students’ Society (ESS), the engineering head shave is an annual fundraiser collecting donations for the Alberta Cancer Foundation (ACF). Alongside fundraising, the event usually involves engineering students and faculty gathering in the ETLC solarium to get their hair either shaved off or trimmed. Due to COVID-19, the annual event has shifted online with participants taking their haircuts into their own hands. The EES will be hosting a Zoom call featuring these at-home head shaves and will be live streaming the event on their Facebook for the general public to watch today from five to seven p.m.

The head shave began back in 2003 when Ron Wicentowich, the father of engineering alum Gary and Graeme Wicentowich was diagnosed with cancer. Louis Bezuidenhout, a friend of the Wicentowich’s and an ESS executive at the time, put together a fundraiser called Razered for Ron. Since then, the head shave has been an annual event in the engineering faculty and has raised over $430,000 in total.

This year more money has been raised than the last three years of the fundraiser combined. With donations currently sitting at well over $40,000, the fundraiser has doubled the ESS’ initial goal of $20,000. 

All the funds raised their year will go towards the ACF’s current area of greatest need, the Albertans helping Albertans fund. This fund directs donations towards patient financial assistance, clinical trials, and equipment and technology for Albertan cancer centres.

Annette Lau and Daniel Gye, both third-year mechanical engineering students and ESS co-vice-presidents (student life), have been planning the event since May and are blown-away from the amount of support the event has received this year. 

“I’m pretty shocked myself — I still can’t believe it,” Lau said.

“I really believed that we could put something together something amazing that would have a great impact but seeing the immense amount of support and widespread participation we have from our faculty, from students, from everyone donating still blows me away,” Gye added.

Donations were first collected on November 1 and will run for two more weeks, ending on December 16. All donations of five dollars or more will receive a mailed sticker that was designed by Lau herself. It features yellow daffodils, which have symbolic meaning for those fighting cancer. 

“The reason why daffodils are used as a symbol of the fight against cancer is because the daffodil is known to be one of the first flowers that pops up in spring,” Lau explained. “It’s basically a symbol of resilience to those fighting cancer and it shows that no matter what there will be hope.”

This year there are 43 participants in the head shave, featuring a mixture of engineering faculty and students. Lau and Gye have also incorporated a competitive element to the head shave this year, by creating teams. Of the nine teams created, the race for first place is between the ESS’ team the Sheared Engineers, who have raised $12,436 and engineering dean Fraser Forbes’ team the Frazer’s Razers, who leads with $13,016.

Lau and Gye see two main reasons why the fundraiser has received so much support this year:  the team dynamic within the ESS and the need for community at a time like this.

“In this time, people feel that they are very disconnected, so giving back to your community is a really great way to feel more connected with Albertan’s and Edmontonians around,” she said. “What’s a better way [to feel connected] than a head shave event?”

“The reason we have this success is because people have been so generous and active and have been so passionate about fundraising and it’s incredible,” Gye said. “People have really banded together for a great thing.”