Community’s hair loss is Locks of Love’s gain
May 31, 2007
Jillian Villeneuve, 10, kept glancing anxiously at her mother as a hairstylist at FX Studios in Hunt Valley separated her long brown hair into four ponytails.
Her hair is so long that she has to be careful when she takes a seat so she doesn’t sit on it. It’s been trailing down her back for a long, long time.
“I’m nervous about getting it cut, but it makes me feel proud to give my hair to somebody who really needs it,” said the Prettyboy Elementary School fourth-grader before the snipping began. “I just don’t know how it will feel to have short hair.”
Stylist Kelly Kropkowski measured Jillian’s ponytails with a ruler. “We can take off 15 inches,” she said as Jillian nodded her head in consent. Less than a minute later, Jillian’s ponytails were in a plastic bag, and Kropkowski began styling the short hair.
“My head feels lighter,” she said as she touched her chin-length hair. “It feels weird.”
Jillian’s two sisters, 12-year-old Claire and Katie, 17, also had appointments with the scissors. In all, the three sisters donated a total of 33 inches of hair to the communitywide Locks of Love drive organized by two Hereford High School students.
Karley Haldeman and Kierstin King, cousins who are both juniors, came up with the community haircut idea back in November. They put notices in all North County schools’ newsletters and spread the word through church bulletins, too.
They purposely set the date to be after Hereford’s prom so the girls would still have long hair for the big night.
Locks of Love is a nonprofit group that makes wigs for children who have lost hair because of medical conditions or treatments. It accepts hair donations of 10 inches or longer for wigs. People with at least 6 inches of hair can also donate. That hair is sold by Locks of Love to offset the wig- manufacturing costs.
“We just thought it would be a neat project to get the community involved,” King said. “We hoped to get a lot of people, but we’re surprised by how many actually did it.”
Three salons participated — FX Studios, Expectations Hair Designs in Hereford and Shear Country Styling in Parkton — and a total of 104 people, mostly students, had their hair cut.
“We’re looking forward to receiving the hair,” said Lauren Kukkamaa, communications director for Locks of Love in Lake Worth, Fla. “It helps further our mission, and we’re happy to hear so many children donated. It affirms that this is a place for children to give to other children.”
At FX Studios alone, 58 people donated a total of 571 inches. That’s more than 47 feet of hair. Included in that total were King and her two sisters and Haldeman and her two sisters, too.
Some, like Hereford High School senior Kate Isennock, just came to watch, but another senior, Caroline Hayden, who gave her hair to Locks of Love two years ago, convinced her to donate her hair.
“I’m going to do it just because it’s going to a good cause,” Isennock said. “I shaved my head when I was 3 because I wanted to play football and look like a boy, so this won’t be so bad. I think.”
Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Four 7-inch ponytails came off. Isennock held them and kept glancing down at them while her hair was being styled. “It looks so, so cute,” Hayden said. “Aren’t you glad you did it?”
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There were two brave males in the bunch. They were Hereford High school junior Zachary Thomas, whose cut resulted in 8 inches of hair that will be sold by Locks of Love, and Sepp-Duncan Panzer, an eighth-grader at Hereford Middle School. He donated six small ponytails between 7 and 8 inches in length.
Even FX Studio’s owner’s daughter got into the act. Emily Behan, a third-grader at Sparks Elementary School, remained stoic while her long, curly blonde hair was cut.
“I feel really good that I can give something to someone who needs it,” she said.
Her father, David Behan, closed down FX Studios for three hours and had more than 20 stylists on hand to offer free cuts, as well as free styling.
Participants munched on donated food, Roly Poly wraps, Bagel Works bagels and Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. They all left with goodie bags that included sample hair products and a voucher for a free meal at Chipotle Mexican restaurant.
The same scene — long hair bunched into ponytails, measured, sheared off and put into plastic bags — also occurred at Shear Country Styling, where six people donated hair. At Expectations Hair Designs, 25 donors lost their locks, including three generations of one family.
Mikaela Turek, 11, donated to Locks of Love two years ago and hadn’t cut her hair since. “When I heard about this, I challenged my mother and my grandmother to do it, too,” she said. Both women agreed and didn’t cut their hair for at least six months.
“I haven’t had hair this long since high school,” said Mikaela’s mother, Karen Turek, just before an 11-inch ponytail was cut off.
Mikaela’s grandmother, Carol Brown, said her gray hair will be sold by Locks of Love because it can’t be used for children’s wigs.
When it came time to cut off Mikaela’s hair, the fifth-grader at Fifth District Elementary School was able to donate a 15-inch ponytail.
King said the next day at Hereford High was filled with comments about all of the new, short hairstyles.
“It was so cool. The guys were like, ‘It’s so cute’ to the girls. I don’t know of anybody who wasn’t happy with their new look.”
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