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POSITIVE NEWS
The Dayton Daily News brings you uplifting human interest news every Thursday in Life.
Like many people on Facebook, Kristin Freeman of Kettering has been able to reconnect with childhood friends after many years.
“In August of 2013, I found my friend from elementary school, Julie Carmichael on Facebook,” Freeman said. “I noticed from some of her posts that one of her twin nieces appeared to have some sort of significant health issue, so I reached out to her to find out what was going on.”
Freeman’s friend explained that her niece, 2-year-old Reagan, had been diagnosed with a grade 1 pilocytic astrocytoma, an inoperable brain tumor. Reagan’s twin sister Rowan was completely healthy and growing normally, and the twins’ parents, Ray and Becca Scacchetti, suspected something was wrong when they noticed Reagan was not growing at the same pace as her sister.
“When you hear about something like this, you feel hopeless,” Freeman said. “I just wondered what one person can do to help ease the pain this family is going through.”
Freeman heard about an organization called St. Baldrick's Foundation that organizes shaving events to help bring awareness and raise money in support of research for childhood cancer. "This sounded like a really great way for someone like me to support not only Reagan but also anyone else dealing with this," Freeman said.
After Freeman did her research, she found St. Baldrick’s events are held all across the nation and are designed to create conversations about childhood cancers. According to the organization, in the U.S. one in five children diagnosed with cancer will not survive, and 4 percent of federal funding for cancer research is dedicated to childhood cancers.
“I had really long hair, and I knew I could get people to pay attention if I shaved it off in public,” Freeman said. “So I filled out an email and I clicked on a link and within a day someone from St. Baldrick’s contacted me back.”
Coincidentally, that someone was a St. Baldrick’s Foundation worker with the same first name, Kristen Perkins, who contacted Freeman from California and talked with her about the shaving events. During the conversation Freeman found out that Perkins just happened to be a Centerville High School graduate.
“If there was ever a sign that I should do this, well, I thought at that point everything was falling into place,” Freeman said.
Freeman began planning her shaving event in January of this year and it took about five months from start to finish in May. “It involved finding a place willing to host the event and organizing it,” Freeman said. “I had to publicize it and find other people to also shave their heads and find volunteers to help during the event.”
Freeman set her shaving event for May 1 in the Oregon Historic District in Dayton, outside The Trolley Stop and eventually had 10 people participate in the event.
“We created a Facebook event and I asked all of my friends to share it,” Freeman said. “I really want to give a shout-out to The Trolley Stop for hosting the event. They gave us the outdoor space and also all the proceeds from the door that night.”
In addition to people finding the event from the St. Baldrick’s website, a biker group, Knights of the Inferno, Buckeye Chapter showed up to get their heads shaved, along with Freeman and one of her colleagues and a local father, Pat Craun, who said he was shaving his head in honor of his young son, Cainan, who, as of May 2015, was in remission after his second fight with leukemia.
“The event was amazing, and I had so much support,” Freeman said. “People came out that I hadn’t seen in years — friends of my parents and siblings. I shaved off 15 inches, and there was a lot of attention.”
Freeman said the goal was to raise $2,500, but they ended up raising $4,700. “People could donate online, but we had buckets available at the event, as well,” she said. All the donations went to support the St. Baldrick’s Foundation to support research into finding cures for childhood cancers.
“Julie and her family were very supportive and had planned on coming out that night, but Reagan ended up having emergency surgery and they were able to remove 50 percent of the tumor,” Freeman said.
And though the little girl today is an active 4 year old, she will always have to live with this tumor because it can’t be removed completely. “She has to undergo very aggressive chemotherapy and surgeries regularly so she can live a normal life,” Freeman said.
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