When freshman physics major Kayla Gurganus had her shoulder-length hair shaved, she received several cheers from the people involved at St. Baldrick's.
Gurganus shaved her hair as part of a Brayton/Clevenger Hall Council event Saturday to help St. Baldrick's, is an organization that raises money to help find cures for children with cancer.
Students can either raise money to keep their hair, cut it or shave it. Gurganus said she received an email about the event last month, but did not know she was going to go through with it until the day.
"You'd be surprised how much your hair weighs, I think, and how much you actually have," she said. "It does definitely feel a lot different."
Participants had to pay a minimum of $10 to be able to get their hair cut or shaved by registered beauticians.
Gurganus' friend, freshman Tara Wrobel, paid $20 to see Gurganus get her head shaved. Wrobel, a psychology major, said she did it mostly because it is for a good cause.
"I also didn't have the courage to do it myself," she added.
Thirty-two people participated to either get their heads shaved or cut. With 25 originally signed up, they had a few walk-ins.
"What's really nice about the event is once you get it set up, it pretty much runs itself because the barbers just kind of keep cutting hair and we just have people there to keep the motion going and stuff like that," Mollie Rockafellow, residence hall director of Brayton/Clevenger, said.
The event raised more than $4,700, beating its goal of $1,000. The top five participants who raised the most money were entered into a drawing to win either an iPad or an iPod.
Rockafellow said most of the donations came in online through the St. Baldrick's website.
Because the event was so successful this year, students have already set the date for the St. Baldrick's event next year, Rockafellow said.
"Talking to students today, they are having so much fun, they're totally like, 'We're going to do this next year, we're going to do so much,'" Rockafellow said. "So they have a lot of ideas of what they want to do differently and what they want to continue. They also have stated that they are hoping to set a higher goal for next year."
Because this was the first year for St. Baldrick's at Ball State, the committee was not sure what to expect, sophomore public relations major Ashley Noga said. But the committee said it is hoping for more participation next year because people will know more about it.
"Now, next year, they have a better building block because they can see what worked [and] what didn't work," freshman meteorology major Adam Burniston said.
Burniston, also a student on the committee, said that they had set up a table in the Atrium to raise money for the event. But because they did not raise a lot there, he said he was worried they were not going to have a good outcome.
"I didn't think that we would get up high," Burniston said. "But luckily, we got a lot of participants and a lot of people raised money. It's really great that we actually raised a lot of money."
Noga added that a lot of the participants had signed up in the past week.
"A lot of people are here to support and family members have come [and] friends," Noga said. "Everyone's cheering like when they go up and when they get the last cut of hair."
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