Local youngster collects hair for cancer

“(Catherine) is going to get a little bob,” smiles Sharon, stroking her daughter’s hair. “My hair’s going to be much shorter – maybe even spiky.”

But it’s not just the latest spring trend motivating the big chop – on June 22, the École elementaire publique Le Prelude student and her mother plan to cut their hair and donate it to wigs for cancer patients as part of their ‘Catherine’s Pretty Ponytails Campaign’. With approximately eight to 12 hair donations – a minimum of 20.5 cm of untreated tresses each – needed to make a single wig, the pair has already begun raising awareness about next month’s event, where participants offering their locks can get a free cut and style from Regal Hair Design, or make a financial donation to the Canadian Cancer Society.

The idea first blossomed last fall, explains Sharon, when she wanted to donate her hair for wigs, but didn’t have enough length. Then in April, Catherine approached her mother wanting to do the same.

“As soon as she said it, I ran upstairs to the mirror and starting measuring my hair,” Sharon recounts with a laugh. It’s first-hand experience with cancer that really inspired the initiative, she continues – several family members have battled the disease, with Catherine’s grandmother the only one to survive.

“She was four at the time (her grandmother was diagnosed), so she didn’t really know what cancer was, just that her granny was sick,” Sharon explains, adding that Catherine attended many of her treatments. “Even at four ... she always wanted to help out people in need. She’s very, very compassionate.”

Community support for the ‘Catherine’s Pretty Ponytails Campaign’ event – which will fall on her eighth birthday – has been “very encouraging” so far, Sharon says, with food to be donated by Loeb Plus Cumberland Market and a stage and chairs to be provided by Catherine’s school. Already four family friends have promised to donate their hair, she adds.

“I’m very proud of her,” Sharon continues, highlighting that Catherine has previously donated to CHEO, the Canadian Women’s Foundation and Toy Mountain. “I’m a person who likes to help out as well ... you want to encourage that in your own children.”

Donna Leith-Gudbranson is another east-end resident working with Sharon on logistics to help create next month’s haircutting extravaganza; her 11-year-old son, Dennis – a schoolmate of Catherine’s – was diagnosed in April 2004 with acute myeloid leukemia, has undergone a bone marrow transplant and is now more than two years into remission.

“It’s definitely a project that’s near and dear to my heart,” she explains. “I’ve seen hundreds of little bald heads.”

Cancer, unfortunately, is a subject that’s all too familiar for many school-aged children today, Leith-Gudbranson continues, with another student at Dennis’ school also taking ill around the same time and eventually succumbing to the disease.

“Children are learning at a very young age that we have to help each other,” she says, adding that such early life lessons often stay with them. “We’re surrounded by it … disease is unfortunately part of our reality at all ages.”

And for female cancer patients especially, hair – and its loss – is closely linked to identity, Leith-Gudbranson suggests.

“To have that stripped from you, it’s very hard to cope with,” she adds. “(A wig) helps them to keep their dignity. You need all the strength you can get (in that situation). Every little bit helps.”

Catherine’s Pretty Ponytails Campaign event will be held Sunday, June 22 from 1 until 3 p.m. at Regal Hair Design at 2208 St. Joseph Blvd. For more information, please visit convio.cancer.ca and click under the Celebration of Life Tributes for Ontario.