Ian Morano, a sophomore biology major, hadn't had a haircut in over four years. With his hair draping over a foot long, he marched onto the stage of the Becker Amphitheater and students began to chant his name.  Followed by a countdown, a pair of scissors and the help of his fraternity brothers, he stepped off the stage nearly bald.

"There's no better cause for me to donate my hair," Morano said.

A blue tarp covered the platform of the stage, catching tumble weeds of hair that were cut off the boys of Sigma Phi Epsilon.

They were shaving their heads in solidarity with children fighting cancer.

Crowds of family, friends and student passersby came to watch the fraternity lose almost all of their hair. Folded chairs lined the stage and a quiet buzzing in the background lasted almost three hours as each member went up one by one.

Morano, along with 80 members of his fraternity, dedicated their entire week to help various organizations, and Shave a SigEP was their biggest charity event yet.

"We were ambitious, but since it's our first year, our initial goal was to raise $3000," said Nick O'Dell, president of SigEP.

Sean Cheuvront raised the most in the fraternity donating a little over $900.

"I basically tried to ask as many people possible," Cheuvront said. "I've been trying to get as much as I can everyday; I even took as little as a dollar from people, and it just added up."

With the SigEP members bringing in donations by the hundreds with their friends and family's generous support, they managed to make over $7000 by the end of the afternoon.

"This is our first year holding Shave a SigEP, and I'm astonished," O'Dell said.

SigEP is donating 100 percent of their proceeds to the St. Baldrick's Foundation, which raises awareness and funds to cure kids' cancer by supporting cancer research and
fellowships.

The hair from over 80 SigEP members will be donated as well to an organization called Matter of Trust. This foundation takes the donated hair and uses it as an environmentally friendly absorbent mat that will then be a clean-up tool for the British Petroleum Oil Spill.

What can SigEP not do?  They clearly don't follow the stereotypical college fraternity.

"I know a lot of times people are turned away from fraternities and don't understand what we are actually about," O'Dell said.

He explained that SigEP preaches a Balanced Man Program, a program that emphasizes on service learning, brotherhood, goal setting and experiential learning through a series of personal development challenges that align within their years of college.

"This is what people don't know about sororities and fraternities," said sophomore Brittney Foglia. "They always have events like this that donate money to their philanthropy."

This is SigEP's first annual care week and they have managed to help various organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club, the American Red Cross, and AIDS Walk.

"We're shaving our heads for the cancer awareness factor," O'Dell said.  "But this has made us tighter as brothers."