WATERLOO -- It's perfectly acceptable, in radio personality JC's mind, to shave your head for a cause.

But he balks at getting the clippers near his trademark goatee.

JC, who hosts Q92.3's morning radio show with Chase, doesn't completely rule out the idea.

"I will do it for the right amount of money," JC said of a bald chin.

That amount? One hundred thousand dollars, he said.

It's far more than Balding for Kids' Cancer has ever raised at its events, said founder Tara Kearney of Waterloo. Two years ago, its biggest year ever, Balding for Kids' Cancer raised just over $21,400.

But that won't stop Kearney from trying -- and she thinks she can get JC to do it for less than the asking price.

"I am gonna try to get some call-ins to shave his goatee off," she said.

Kearney will be in the Q92.3 studio Friday morning beginning at 7 a.m. to solicit donations from listeners, which is when JC will shave his hair for the cause. Co-host Chase will also shave his head on Saturday at the Balding for Kids' Cancer event at Paulie's Place, which begins at 3 p.m.

Balding for Kids' Cancer, which raises money for the University of Iowa Children's Hospital through the Children's Miracle Network, was started four years ago by Kearney in response to what she considered to be little knowledge of childhood cancers. At the time, her daughter, Cecelia, then 13 months, had just been diagnosed.

"You don't know that children get cancer, or you think of leukemia or something like that," Kearney said. "I was calling family members and they were like, 'Are you serious?' The awareness just struck me: There's no awareness out there."

She was also disinclined to jump onto fundraisers that only donated a slight portion of their funds to national organizations.

"I wanted the funds to be local here, I wanted every penny we raised to go straight toward the research being done," she said. "Everything is donated."

In its first years, Balding for Kids' Cancer raised $10,000 to $15,000 and peaked in 2006 at $21,400. Then Kearney took a year off to care for Cecelia. This year, she's back with an even more ambitious goal: $30,000.

To raise that kind of money might mean somebody will have to part with a chin buddy.

"Kids don't have the option to say, 'Yeah, I want to walk around without hair,'" Kearney said.

Contact Amie Steffen

at (319) 291-1464 or

amie.steffen@wcfcourier.com.