All Tressed Up

Photograph by Stephanie Klein-Davis

Children who lose their hair to illness or injury may also lose their sense of self-esteem and self-confidence. But a Lake Worth, Fla., charity is helping those kids reclaim their childhoods one bob, ponytail, or pageboy at a time.

Locks of Love provides the children with hairpieces that are custom-made to fit to each child’s head so the hair will stay put during soccer practice, ballet, or even a day of swimming.

The organization pays $1,000 for each of the hairpieces, which are crafted by hand in Indonesia and contain more than 140,000 strands of human hair. Since Locks of Love got started in 1997, the organization has provided hairpieces for more than 1,200 children.

Each week, the charity receives 2,000 hair donations — which must be at least 10 inches long — from people around the world. Eighty percent of the donated hair comes from young people.

“Kids have a real compassion for the suffering of other children,” says Susan K. Stone, executive director of Locks of Love. “They know how hard it is to go to school with the wrong type of backpack or the wrong type of jeans. They can’t always write a big check or organize a big fund raiser, but they can cut their hair.”

The organization’s budget for 2004 is slightly more than $500,000, with 70 percent coming from contributions from individuals. Locks of Love has also received donations from hair-care companies, such as Matrix, Hair Cuttery, and Fantastic Sams.

Here, 9-year-old Emily Williams, of Goshen, Va., who has a medical condition in which her hair doesn’t attach well to the scalp, shows off hairpieces she received from Locks of Love.