Shear altruism
Published: June 1, 2006
Ten-year-old Taylor de Man has gone to great lengths to help youngsters he has never met. For two years he has shrugged off snide remarks that his long blond hair made him look like a girl. For two years he has put up with tangles and knots. And while he didn’t talk about it much, he knew that what he was doing — growing his hair so it was at least 10 inches long — was for a good cause.
For de Man, his hair-growing odyssey began when his music teacher, Jonathan Taylor, explained why he was letting his own hair grow long — he was planning to donate it to the nonprofit Locks of Love, a Florida-based organization that provides hair pieces to financially disadvantaged children under age 18 who have lost their hair because of a medical condition. The custom fitted wigs are provided free of charge or on a sliding scale.
De Man liked the idea of being actively and uniquely involved in helping another youngster. Even his sister, Alex, was impressed and decided to try growing her hair for the project, but wasn’t able to stick it out.
As for the teasing, “I just dealt with it,” de Man said. “I didn’t really care very much. I knew why I was doing it; I’d be making another child’s life a lot better.”
Last week, after a quick measuring showed his hair was at last the required length, de Man and his mom, Elaine de Man, stopped off at Nancy Glorio’s Salon Glorio in St. Helena. Many minutes later, de Man emerged with a spiffy, short haircut and a thick pony tail of hair to send to Locks of Love.
On Monday, he was honored at a school assembly at Sonoma Country Day and headmaster Philip Nix explained what de Man had been up to. Nix also told de Man about his 8-year-old niece with a life-threatening disease, who had been helped by Locks of Love.
“He said he wanted to thank someone who had done what I did because someone had done that for her,” de Man said.
Now that he can feel the wind swirl around his ears, de Man said he feels pretty good — inside and out.
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