“I whip my hair back and forth!”. No this isn’t the song by Willow Smith 🙂 This good news story is about seven students at Oak Knoll “upper school” in Summit, New Jersey.
On October 13th, seven great students donated their hair to the American Cancer Society as part of the Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths program. The hair gets made into wigs for patients going through chemotherapy. So far, the Pantene program has donated over 24,000 real-hair wigs to the American Cancer Society.
The seven students and their Physical Education teacher, Rachel Lasda, each donated at least 8 inches of hair. Lasda has donated her hair several times and thought this time she would get students involved in honor of October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Ms. Lasda stated, “It is crazy how something most of us take for granted can be such a beautiful gift for someone going through one of the most difficult times in her life,”. Eight grader, Elizabeth Sweetra (what a fitting name!) commented on why she donated her hair – “I wanted to donate it because I really wanted to be able to give some other girl the gift to have hair again,”. After seeing how little 8 inches is, Elizabeth decided to take off two more inches!
Another Oak Knoll student donating her hair
Donating my hair was an amazing experience,” Mary Mallany ’15 said. “It felt so freeing and gratifying to feel the weight of my hair leave my shoulders. I know that it may be a while until my hair grows back, but honestly it’s worth it. The most important thing to me was that I knew that someone would hopefully gain a bit of happiness from it.”
On thing is for sure – they are making positive differences in peoples lives!
Peace & Love,
Jon
– The Good World News