By Xazmin GarzaLAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
House
phones and cellphones are ringing simultaneously at the Stone family
home on this Tuesday afternoon. Stay-at-home mom Lara Stone, dashes from
one call to the other in short shorts, a red tank top and worn-in house
slippers. School let out less than a week ago, but a nearly finished
750-piece puzzle on the dining room table indicates that boredom has
already set in with her kids.
A Nintendo DS has one child,
10-year-old Andy, hypnotized upstairs. Jared, 8, sits on a couch decked
out in Duff's Famous Wings gear from a recent trip to Buffalo. He's
keeping a close eye on his twin sister Allison, whose head occasionally
jerks back from the ambitious stroke of her mom's hairbrush. Lara needs
to de-tangle Allison's waist-length hair before hairstylist Victoria
Ripley arrives.
It may appear a typical summer day at the Stone
house. But, that's only if you consider an 8-year-old sacrificing 10
inches of her own hair to help a child she'll never meet "typical."
"People
grow out their hair and give it to Locks of Love and then other people
have wigs and it makes them very happy," Allison says, explaining why
today's isn't just any haircut.
She's not a Locks of Love novice,
either. At age 5 she also made a donation to the organization that
provides prosthetic hairpieces to financially disadvantaged kids with
hair loss. Today she's repeating the process and couldn't come off any
less phased by it.
Does she consider chopping her locks from her
belt loops to her collarbone the ultimate sacrifice? "No, not really,"
Allison says, pushing up her purple glasses and shrugging her shoulders.
She's
more concerned with catching a new episode of "iCarly," winning her
next family game of Apples to Apples, or nailing her ballet recital.
Her
nonchalance doesn't surprise Lauren Kukkamaa one bit. The
communications director for Locks of Love says 80 percent of their
donations derive from young children who don't think twice about the
gesture.
"They learn about giving of themselves and latch onto
that notion. It's something they can do that they don't need a checkbook
for," she says. "They think, 'That's all I have to do is give hair?' "
Yep,
that's all they have to do: Whack 10 inches of unprocessed hair from
their head and change someone's life. It's the unprocessed part that
makes it difficult for adults to donate. That and the fact most women
with 10 expendable inches of hair either wouldn't dream of cutting it or
prefer to do it several small inches at a time.
"It's more of an identity for us as we get older," Kukkamaa says.
Kids
don't put much importance in hair -- until they've lost it. Then it
consumes their thoughts and burdens their lives. Whether it's the
cheerleader with alopecia from the northwest who has to run for cover
when it rains so her synthetic wig doesn't frizz up or the 10-year-old
chemo patient who avoids slumber parties out of fear her wig will come
off in her sleep, hair loss prevents kids from being kids.
That's
where Locks of Love comes in. Its hairpieces are designed specifically
to recipients' scalp measurements. A vacuum seal, not tape or glue,
ensures a secure fit. A hard tug won't pull them off and they do just
fine in swimming pools. The organization lets kids worry about important
things, like beating their brothers at checkers.
At least that's
what Allison's consumed with just minutes before Ripley snaps a salon
smock around her neck. Jared insists she's never beaten him. She begs to
differ. While they volley back and forth in a game of "have too" "have
not," Ripley gets her cutting station ready in the kitchen.
Beach
towels serve as catching mitts for falling locks and her comb makes for a
nice measuring stick. Wearing a shirt covered in peace and love
symbols, Allison takes to the make-do salon chair in the kitchen. Her
hair gets sprayed down and separated into two neat ponytails at the nape
of her neck.
"Are you about ready?" Ripley asks.
"Wait. What's gonna happen now?" wonders Allison.
Once
she's informed a couple quick snips will forever separate those 10
inches of hair from her head, Allison nods her head yes and closes her
eyes.
Soon enough she's staring at the severed ponytails on her
kitchen counter, next to the paper basket Jared handmade his dad for
Father's Day. Her mother will send them off this afternoon. She just
needs a Ziploc bag and the form she downloaded from the Locks of Love
website to complete the mission.
Allison waited a long time for
this. Now that the big event has come and gone, she's not so sure she'll
make it a Locks of Love threepeat. She tells "Mommy" she's sad her hair
is gone. The significance of the three years it took to grow it is
finally setting in.
"I'm gonna be in sixth grade when I can cut it again," she says. "Sixth grade!"
As
the longevity hits her, Jared checks his sister's math in his head and
then corrects her out loud: "Actually, I think you'll be in seventh," he
says.
Lara reminds Allison of the kids she's helping and that
it's just hair. Her daughter takes a minute to think about it as her
hair gets blown dry.
Helping others isn't a foreign concept in
this house. When her parents throw holiday parties they ask guests to
bring toys for less fortunate kids instead of gifts for them. And,
Allison's school uses national and global disasters to educate students
on the value of giving.
The 8-year-old pipes up. It seems she's had a change of heart on her previous change of heart.
"Even though when I was little I wanted long hair, but now I know hair can grow," she says. "It's a nice thing to do. I'll keep doing it. I'll try."
![[11:13] U.S. model Kendall Jenner, U.S. model Gigi Hadid, Peruvian photographer Mario Testino, British model Jourdan Dunn and U.S. model Karlie Kloss (L to R) conduct an auction during the amfAR's Cinema Against AIDS 2015](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vbxXYM5KnaAQvBRsOuNZnnB_G_ILzmCqTHYgr7Uv9Z4Pizsf09qNlpvi9n5A4PSOyVdtp-19M2FKiJHf_eTkrA6wZGIxAXcFmbH7L5OWXAqFEEB6sWzBbUcTcktlG3AoeGUlTtR_eHm56yjdR_xqmJiMdacCkJIH3ZBxfoGc8gp727BgSKwiEFqfL__2FB9LqnsdTJpHTBWB_QOUjISCsGQseul159wdgGAF1at4AE7kCFdn2dtpaHfo5UxH9y4tt0k1CzPT2DbVZQH0q4AJsW4RFLBdysarg=s0-d "[11:13] U.S. model Kendall Jenner, U.S. model Gigi Hadid, Peruvian photographer Mario Testino, British model Jourdan Dunn and U.S. model Karlie Kloss (L to R) conduct an auction during the amfAR's Cinema Against AIDS 2015")