A well documented haircut: high school students Salma Zakiyah and Rosie Palof had their heads shaved as part of a fundraiser for the St. Baldrick's Foundation, at Tuesday night's meeting of the Sitka Assembly. (KCAW photo/Rachel Waldholz)

A well-documented haircut: high school students Salma Zakiyah and Rosie Palof had their heads shaved as part of a fundraiser for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Sitka Assembly. (KCAW photo/Rachel Waldholz)

The Sitka Assembly took some time out from their usual business on Tuesday night (3-25-14) to recognize local volunteers –and fit in a couple quick haircuts.

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The assembly opened its meeting with a pair of proclamations. Mayor Mim McConnell declared Friday, March 28th, St. Baldrick’s Foundation Day, in honor of the charity, which raises money for research into childhood cancers.

“Worldwide more than 175,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year, and childhood cancer is the number one cause of death by disease of children in the United States,” McConnell read from the city proclamation.

The Sitka Assembly took some time out from their usual business on Tuesday to recognize local volunteers…and in the process, turned Centennial Hall into a temporary barbershop. KCAW’s Rachel Waldholz has more.

Salma Zakiyah and Rosie Palof submitted to a very public shearing to benefit the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. (KCAW photo/Rachel Waldholz)

The official St. Baldrick’s event will take place on Friday.  More than forty Sitkans have volunteered to have their heads shaved as part of the fundraiser.

But two high school students stepped up for an early – and very public — shearing.

Sitka High School senior Rosie Palof, and Salma Zakiyah, an exchange student from Indonesia, settled into chairs set up before the assembly and audience, and had their heads shaved, to cheers and applause.

Mayor McConnell also declared April 1st to be Americorps Day, in recognition of the volunteers with that national service organization who are serving in Sitka and around Alaska.

Over a dozen Americorps volunteers were on hand to be recognized as the mayor read off a list of their accomplishments, including 24,000 hours of community service provided by the fourteen Sitka program members this last year, over 100 young people recruited for community service serving Sitka senior citizens, and forty Sitka youth recruited and trained in juvenile justice.

The Americorps volunteers left with an official proclamation – but with their hair intact.