More than 12,000 children and teenagers are diagnosed with cancer every year. On Wednesday, Feb. 29, about 45 Bluffton University baseball players and coaches are going bald to show they care.

Having already raised roughly $7,000 in the last month for the St. Baldrick's Foundation-which funds research for potential childhood cancer cures-the Bluffton baseball Beavers will take their support a step further on Wednesday, having their heads shaved in solidarity with young cancer victims.

The mass shearing, courtesy of stylists from The Curling Iron in Bluffton, will begin at noon and continue for nearly an hour in The Commons in Marbeck Center. It is the first BaseBald for the Cure event for St. Baldrick's, a Monrovia, Calif.-based charity.

Among those coming to watch will be, along with his mother and brother, 5-year-old Austin Gallagher of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, who was diagnosed with bilateral Wilms tumor in 2007 and is one of St. Baldrick's five Ambassador Kids in 2012.

Aaron Hutchison, Bluffton's assistant coach, learned about BaseBald at the American Baseball Coaches Association convention in January.

Soon after, on the first day of preseason practice, the Beavers set a goal to raise $2,500. Exceeding the goal in less than a week, they doubled it to $5,000 and, surpassing that figure about two weeks ago, moved the target to $6,500-which they have also eclipsed.

BaseBald for the Cure was organized two years ago at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill by Chase Jones, a brain cancer survivor. Now working for St. Baldrick's, he is attempting to expand the program by recruiting participating teams.