Locks of Love
Published: May 24, 2006
Frank Zeek fourth-grader Kamran Heth wears her auburn hair shoulder length now.
Before she had it cut, it fell to her waist — which is about the length of Rene Beck’s blond hair currently. Beck, also in the fourth grade at Frank Zeek School, once had hair down to her knees, but that was before she cut it off last year and donated it to Locks of Love.
Locks of Love is a nonprofit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children 18 years and younger suffering from long-term medical hair loss, states information from the organization on its Web site.
Heth had about 9-and-a-half inches cut off her mane just last week and she, too, will ship her ponytail to Locks of Love.
Kamran’s mother, Kim Heth, said it was her own long locks that gave her the idea of donating her daughter’s hair.
“It was discussed that if I am ever interested in cutting it, I should donate it,” she said, referring to conversations with co-workers at Ukiah Valley Medical Center. “Kamran’s hair continued to grow longer and more difficult for her to manage and tolerate,” she said, adding that the way she looked at it, Kamran’s “troubles would be somebody else’s blessing.”
Her 10-year-old daughter agreed.
“In the summer it gets too hot and in the morning it’s too hard to do my hair,” she said Monday, as she sat outside of her classroom with her mother and her ponytail — still intact inside a plastic Ziploc bag.
Asked how she felt about donating her ponytail, she said “happy … because I gave my hair to somebody who doesn’t have hair.”
Kamran will receive a certificate from Locks of Love essentially saying “thanks,” and she recently received a community service award from her school as well, but as Kim Heth pointed out, what counts most is the good feeling of helping someone else.
“Hair is such a luxury. We take it for granted: we dye it, bleach it, perm it … almost to the point of destroying it, yet when somebody else has the unfortunate diagnosis of cancer, treatment (can) cause them to lose the simple luxury of having hair,” she said.
Which is apparently why Beck’s mother, Rhonda Newcomb, suggested her daughter donate her hair to the organization.
“My mom told me I should cut it and give it to Locks of Love, to a little girl who has cancer,” Beck said.
Besides, Beck said, she wanted to cut her then-knee-length hair because it was “too long and it was hard to take care of.”
Donating her golden locks made her feel good, Beck said. “I probably made a little girl happy because she didn’t have hair and now she does.”
Asked if she planned to donate her hair again some day, she said pointing to her knees: “Probably when it gets down to here.”
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