NEW BERLIN – A local physician is going from operating tables to waiting on them this weekend at New York Pizzeria, all in the hopes of finding a cure for cancer.

Bring an appetite from 3 p.m. to close Sunday at New York Pizzeria in downtown New Berlin as Norwich Emergency Medicine Dr. Thomas Cruz takes your order and serves up the meals.

Dr. Cruz’ Sunday shift at the local eatery is a preliminary fundraiser for the St. Balrdick’s head-shaving event next weekend in Norwich. Trying to promote awareness and raise money for cancer research, community members have joined forces at over 1,000 locations worldwide to host a St. Baldrick’s event near St. Patrick’s day each year.

The event, which will take place in Howard Johnson’s ballroom in Norwich on March 15, has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years and is expected to be bigger and better than ever this year as teams are already underway in their collecting efforts.

So what is St. Baldrick’s? Men and women, in teams or individually, sign up to raise money by getting their head shaved at the event and in turn, all the money raised gets sent to St. Jude’s to aid cancer research and hopefully to one day find a cure.