The Brayden Ottenbriet Close Cuts for Cancer kicked off its 2021 Cancer is for the Birds campaign last week.
Leone Ottenbriet, the co-founder of Close Cuts for Cancer, explains how the campaign began back in 2019.
“Local woodworker Elgin Strocen, when he was finding an outlet to pass the time after his daughter was diagnosed with cancer the previous year,” she said. “He decided to start building birdhouses, but he found that over that year, he was making quite a bit of them. He also wanted to give back and help other cancer patients in the area, and we began the Cancer is for the Birds campaign where we sell birdhouses every spring.”
This year’s campaign will be honouring by Elgin Strocen, who passed away in October of last year.
“In true Elgin form, while he was palliative, he completed a vast number of birdhouses and gave us a call and said, please take these, I would like you to be selling them,” he said. “I’m assuming we have about 200 of his birdhouses in storage right now.”
Proceeds from this program will support the Close Cuts for Cancer Local Cancer Initiatives Program, which aims to enrich the lives of local cancer patients and their families and has raised over $850,000 since 1998.
Ottenbriet added that they have some local community members to build birdhouses for future campaigns.
The birdhouses cost $15 for a large one and $10 for a small one. Those interested can email Leone at [email protected].
