Mom, daughter donate hair
Published: May 20, 2005
The scissors had to work extra hard to shear off the thick ponytail that hung nearly to Lillian Goff’s tiny waist. As soon as 10 inches of the 6-year-old’s dark, pretty hair came off, cheers and applause flooded the kindergarten classroom.
It was no ordinary haircut. While teachers, classmates and family members watched, Lillian and her mother Renee Goff got new hairstyles and made a generous contribution to charity last Thursday morning. They donated their hair to Locks of Love, a non-profit organization that provides prosthetic hairpieces to children suffering from medically-related hair loss.
“What a wonderful gift, mother and daughter doing this together,” C. Hunter Ritchie Elementary School Principal Lee Bell said. “We are so proud of them.”
Mrs. Goff heard about Locks of Love from a friend and two family members who had donated hair to the organization. Mrs. Goff had planned to get her hair cut anyway and then had the idea to have her daughter’s cut as well and give their manes to Locks of Love.
Both mother and daughter have had straight brown hair their whole lives. Neither worried about losing more than half of it.
“It grows really fast,” Mrs. Goff said. “I expect by a month or so it will grow back a couple of inches.”
Her daughter remained a little apprehensive about the procedure. Lillian didn’t mind having her hair cut, her mother explained. She just worried about doing it in front of a lot of people.
Her father Dana Goff was reluctant to let his daughter’s hair go at first. But after learning the reason, he deemed it a great idea. “It’s just hair . . . . They are almost like twins,” Mr. Goff said after the haircuts.
Since it began in 1997, Locks of Love has provided more than 1,000 hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children. Some 80 percent of the donors are children themselves. The organization, staffed by volunteers, collects the hair and sends it to a manufacturer to make the hairpieces.
Each recipient chooses the color and texture of hair he or she wants. The hairpiece is custom made from a plaster cast mold of the child’s head.
The manufacturer makes a surgical silicone skullcap, colored to match the child’s skin tone. Each piece of hair is injected into the skullcap with special needles. This is done 150,000 times for one hairpiece.
It takes 10 ponytails to make a hairpiece because the shorter strands get removed during the process. The shorter hair goes into hairpieces for boys.
The hairpieces, which retail for $3,500 to $6,000, are provided free of charge or on a sliding scale, to children whose families meet the organization’s guidelines.
“You are always looking at all the hair on the floor that you sweep up,” says stylist Melanee Montalvo, who cut the Goffs’ hair in Lillian’s kindergarten classroom. “To be able to use it, it’s very rewarding to be a part of it.”
Mrs. Montalvo, who works at Salon Emage in Warrenton, cuts hair for donation to Locks of Love about once a month. The most hair she ever cut was almost 24 inches. She has a client who comes in every two years to donate hair.
Salon Emage provides the haircut for free, including styling, for all donors. The salon packages the hair and sends it directly to Locks of Love. SophistiCut LTD, another beauty shop in Warrenton, also donates hair to the program.
Lisa O’Bannon, Lillian’s kindergarten teacher, said her young students who watched the haircuts, may not completely understand the gifts to bald children. But Mrs. O’Bannon says, “They will remember the experience. It plants that seed in kids’ heads that they can do it, too.”
Kindergartner Emily Trotter, who watched the Goffs part with their long tresses, said: “It’s a good thing.”
After the haircut, Lillian ran to grandmother Marion Edwards and gave her a hug. Lillian says she will keep her hair short for the summer. It made her feel good to give her hair to someone who needed it, she said.
Yes, she would do it again.
Her favorite part of the experience?
“When it was over,” Lillian said with a shy smile.
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