Aryaman Sinha

Sancta Maria College is shaving for a cure.

Every day in New Zealand, six people are told they have a blood cancer or a related condition. Leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma. It doesn't care how old you are or how healthy you were the day before. Some of those people are students, parents and teachers in communities just like ours, and for many of them the diagnosis is the start of months or years of treatment, hospital stays and uncertainty.

Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand is there for those families from the day they're diagnosed. It provides support workers, information, accommodation help, patient forums and a voice for people who often don't have the energy to speak up for themselves. It also funds research into better treatments. LBC receives no direct government funding for this work. It runs entirely on donations, which means it runs on people like us.

That's why, on Tuesday 22 September, a group of Sancta Maria College students will sit down in front of the whole school and have their heads shaved. Losing your hair is one of the most visible parts of going through chemotherapy, and it's something patients don't get to choose. Our students are choosing it, to show those patients they're not on their own, and to turn a bit of nerve into money that helps.

Our goal is $3,000. Every dollar donated on this page goes directly to Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand. Whether it's $5 or $500, it all counts, and it all reaches a family who needs it.

To our shavees, thank you. You said yes when it would have been easier to say no. To everyone who sponsors them, comes along to watch, or drops a gold coin at the door, thank you for standing with them.