By Michael Brennan, UNC-Charlotte ‘15

When they found out their brother had been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, the brothers of the North Carolina Nu Chapter at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte wanted to do something big. Chapter president Michael Brennan shares the story of how his chapter banded together and raised more than $6,000.

I found out Jack had been diagnosed with Leukemia just as I was arriving at our chapter’s Balanced Man Scholarship Banquet. I was supposed to speak at the banquet, but instead I got back in my car and drove to the neighboring county where Jack was in the hospital.

That night at the chapter house, we called an emergency meeting to let everyone know what was going on. We talked about finding a way to pay Jack’s dues for the rest of college, and we talked about raising money for his treatments. It was our vice president of membership development who came up with the idea of “Shave a SigEp.”

Two weeks later we had a full campaign going. We created the Shave a SigEp event on Facebook and opened up our donation page online. We sent out parent emails and began getting in touch with local volunteers. To our surprise, we began to get immense support from the community, and were even contacted by four different local news stations about covering the event.

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Jack’s parents asked that we donate the money to the American Cancer Society, and they and Relay for Life contacted us about partnering with the event. Greek chapters from all across campus came out in support, and Grand President Phil Cox even came out and visited Jack.

The day of the actual event was amazing. Dozens of us shaved our heads, and some great coverage from local news outlets let everyone know what was going on. It was a proud day for us.

More importantly, it was a great day for Jack. In one of his interviews that day he said, “It makes you feel good to know that your brothers care that much about you, and they want to help support you through this.” And that’s exactly how we felt.

Jack, we know you’ve got three years of treatment in front of you, and we’ll be with you every step of the way.

View some of the day’s news coverage here.