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Cancer sucks. It is unfortunate that the majority (if not everyone) reading this, has experienced the devastating loss of a loved one to this incurable disease. Personally, I have lost one of my favorite humans which is my paternal grandma to breast cancer, and one of my best friends in middle school to melanoma, a type of skin cancer. It creates rage, depression and uneasiness to be unhelpful in helping someone that suffers from this. Every time I have a deep conversation with someone about this topic, it becomes clearer that a lot of people want to raise awareness and support people suffering from this, but they don’t know how. When one of my most loving aunts got diagnosed with this malignant illness last year, I became one of these people. I researched a lot of pages online which told me information about how to help and donate. What I found is that the easiest way of helping is not to donate money, or to buy t-shirts and bracelets (which are also great ways to spread the message), but to donate hair to make wigs for patients. As soon as I read an article from a blogger narrating her hair donation experience, I decided to do it. Every time I told someone what my aim was they would look at me as if I was crazy. This is because all my friends and family has always seen me with long hair because I never really liked how short hair looked on me. Furthermore, they tried to convince me to donate in other ways because hair can take a lot of time to grow back which means that if I did not like how it looked afterwards, there will not be an option to get it back in a fast period of time. Other people will also say that if I want to donate it I have to maintain it healthy and cannot dye it, which could be a really difficult task to complete. After 7 months of letting my hair grow and ignoring all the criticism, I finally reached the 12 inches needed to donate, and I did it. It was a challenge to fulfill but I had to do it. It was not something that I only had to do for me, but for others. The process of donating involves putting your hair into a ponytail and then cutting it off. I asked the woman who cut it why it is so important to motivate people to donate their hair, and she answered with three main points which are the following: it can take eighteen to twenty ponytails to create ONE custom hairpiece for a person’s need (which is why a lot of people are needed), cancer fighters not only suffer physically but experience a great emotional pain when they see their tremendous change in appearance, and last but not least, motivating each other to do something helpful for others is what can potentially help the world become better. So, this is me urging you to donate your hair if you can. These are some of the great places where you can go: Pantene Beautiful Lengths, Wigs for Kids, Wigs 4 kids, and Locks of Love. If you love long hair like me, it can definitely be a huge challenge, but we have to remember the reason why and for who we are doing it for, because goals are not achieved on their own. Remind yourself of the beautiful idea of not only having personal goals that will benefit one’s well-being, but a goal that will make someone’s suffering hurt a little less. “It is not just about making a donation, it is about making a difference.” – Kathy Calvin.
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