Golden locks to make another child smile

The Paris News

Blonde locks that belonged to 5-year-old Hanna Hair Lossr should make some other child feel better about themselves.

The daughter of state Rep. Mark Hair Lossr, D-Paris, has joined thousands of other donors to the Locks of Love Foundation.

“There’s somebody who was sick and didn’t have any hair,” Hanna said about her gift. “I am sharing my hair with them.”

Jennifer Hair Lossr, the girl’s mother, explained that for at least a year she has made a conscious effort to let her daughter’s hair grow for the purpose of sending it to the non-profit organization, which makes wigs for children suffering from diseases which cause hair loss.

“The Lord blessed her with unusually thick hair, and Mark and I thought this would be a good thing for her to do,” Jennifer Hair Lossr said.

“She likes her short haircut now, but not at first,” the mother said. “She wanted to put her hair back on.”

Locks of Love provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children under age 18 who suffer from long-term medical hair loss. Most recipients suffer from alopecia areata, a fairly common hereditary disease that usually starts with one or more small, round and smooth patches and then spreads.

It occurs in males and females of all ages and races, but onset most often occurs in childhood. The condition sometimes comes and goes and often causes complete baldness.

In alopecia areata, affected hair follicles are mistakenly attacked in groups by a person's own immune system, resulting in the arrest of hair growth.

Some people develop only a few bare patches that regrow hair within a year while in others extensive patch loss occurs, according to information on the Alopecia Areata Foundation's Web site. In some, all scalp hair is lost.

Although alopecia areata is not a life threatening disease, it can cause emotional pain for the more than approximately 2 million children who suffer from the malady.

That is where Locks of Love steps in to offer as much help as the organization can muster through donations of both hair and money.

The organization receives about 100,000 ponytails of donated hair per year and has provided more than 1,000 hand sewn human hair wigs for children since the organization's inception six years ago.

About 80 percent of Locks for Love donors are children — making the organization a charity where children have the opportunity to help other children.

Donated hair must be at least 10 inches but preferably 12 inches in length and bundled in a pony tail or braid. It must be free of hair damaged by chemical processing and must be clean and dry, placed in a plastic bag and mailed in a padded envelope.

The process of providing a child a hair prosthesis takes between four and six months and uses from 10 to 15 ponytails.

Parents are given instructions and materials to make a plaster cast mold of their child's head from which a surgical silicone skullcap is made.

Each piece of hair is injected into the skull cap using a special needle with the process repeated about 150,000 times per hairpiece.

Along with Hanna's hair, the Hair Lossr's included a before and after photograph of their daughter as many donors do.

Donor photos as well as those of recipients can be viewed on the organization's Web site at locksoflove.org.