Grow where you’re planted. It doesn’t mean we have the same opportunities or abilities. It doesn’t mean that we grow at the same rate. It doesn’t mean that we produce the same results. It does mean that we should do what we can with what we’ve been given.

I’ve been given hair. Lots of it. This Friday I will be shaved bald so I can grow where I’m planted! And due to my Italian heritage, this will be the first time my head has been bare since I was a two-week old fetus!

St. Baldrick’s Foundation raises money for childhood cancer research, and their primary fundraiser is through head-shaving events. Started by three New York executives in 1999, the event is now held in all 50 states. St. Baldrick’s has quickly become the largest volunteer fundraiser for childhood cancer research.

A few years back, a friend of mine received some of the hardest news any parent can hear: your daughter has leukemia. As I followed the little girls’ story, I learned things that I had been spared experiencing firsthand: the diagnosis, the fear, the treatment, the side effects, the pain, the roller coaster of having a very sick child. I’m taking part of this event in honor of that brave, strong 6-year old named Carly.  Perhaps this will be the year that research finds new treatment options or even a cure so that other parents and children can avoid such difficulty and heartache.

Will you do what you can with what you’ve been given?

If you have been given your health and the health of your children, will you please donate whatever you can? I will shave my head so you don’t have to! Click here.

If you’re like me and scores of others whose jobs were cut while the economy struggles to rebound, will you volunteer to raise money by taking “a lot off the top”? Click here.

If you unable to donate money and the thought of seeing your head naked scares you, will you volunteer a few hours with the St. Bardrick’s Foundation event near where you live? Click here.

Will you grow where you’re planted?