Lopping off hair for Locks of Love
Seven-year-old Caroline Ennis came to UCLA Thursday for her first-ever big haircut. The UCLA professor's daughter arrived with shining hair that hung to her waist, ready to donate almost a foot of it so that a sick child could have her flowing locks as a wig.
It was all part of
UCLA's Alumni Scholars Club's fifth annual Locks of Love fundraiser, where every year more than 200 people get a free haircut from Vidal Sassoon Academy students. Locks of Love turns the hair — including a predicted 2,500 inches at this year's UCLA event — into wigs for children suffering from hair loss. About 60 UCLA students volunteered at this year's event to keep things running smoothly, said senior Marie Cross, director of the Alumni Scholars Club's Internal Campus Volunteer Committee.
"It's gotten bigger every year," said Cross, who starts planning the event every summer. "It's a great way to come together with the salon and donate a ton of hair to Locks of Love."
As for Caroline, daughter of Assistant Professor Daniel Ennis in UCLA's Department of Radiological Sciences, even though she had never gotten more than a quarter-inch trim before Thursday, she was bouncing up and down with a big grin.
"I'm excited," the first grader said before her haircut, "but I'm scared to go to school tomorrow."
But she'd been planning the haircut ever since her grandmother told her she could donate her hair. Fortunately, her anxiousness vanished once she saw the results.
"I'm so happy! I've been waiting a year to do this!" she said. "Now that I've got my hair cut, I'm not nervous at all. I want to go to school right now!"
Mom Suzanne Ennis brushes Caroline's long hair one last time. Photos by Alison Hewitt.
Caroline reacts as hairdresser Miki completes the first cut.
Hamming it up.
Little brother Cameron, 5, gets a closer look.
