Locks Of Love
Emma DeMayo and Riya Sethi
Mission Statement
“Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children under the age of 21, suffering from long term medical hair loss from any diagnosis.” -taken from locks of love
Intro
People all around the world benefit from charitable aid. Locks of Love (LOL) helps a very unique cause. LOL allows children with long term hair loss, to live a more normal life. Hair loss with a medical diagnosis is not something that many charities support. However,Locks of Love provides custom wigs to people who are facing this diagnosis .They foster the self esteem of children affected with this condition at a young age. LOL has a profound impact through their generosity and established mission on having a positive impact for children with hair loss.
What is the issue/cause that your charity supports?
Locks of Love supports medical hair loss for people 21 and younger. They help people who have gone through chemotherapy or have alopecia areata which is the biggest disease that LOL supports. Chemotherapy is cancer treatment. “Chemotherapy toxins kills good and bad cells to result in hair loss. Alopecia Areata is a disease that causes sudden hair loss, usually in patches. In Janey Levy’s book about Alopecia Areata, there is a picture shown of a woman who donated to locks of love. “She understands how important a hair piece can be to a child or - teen with hair loss- she has Alopecia Areata.”
Locks of Love also helps people 21 and younger with financial problems. People who cant afford to buy themselves wigs, don't have enough money for treatment or any of the things that normal kids have in their life. Families with many different problems can apply to get locks of love’s help.
How did the organization begin and grow into what it is now?
The locks of Love organization has a history of its own, beginning in December 1997. The owner of Locks of Love, Mrs Coffman, was in her 20’s when she developed alopecia (a disease that causes hair fall) after getting a hepatitis vaccination. 15 years later her 4 year old daughter had alopecia and lost all her hair. Her daughters hair loss caused her to quit her job and start Locks of Love with her daughter as inspiration. Mrs. Hoffman was off to a rough start as she originally started by collecting hair donations in bins in her garage for quite a while. However eventually she was able to find a location and a quality manufacturer for wigs and then Locks of Love was off and running.
Locks of Love was receiving a great deal of support with media and volunteers right from the beginning. Today Locks of Love is mentioned on TV shows such as Oprah, 20/20, the Today Show, the New York Times and many others. The organization has recipients all around the world and in all fifty states. In Canada they are also trying to support financially disadvantaged kids with hair loss, just like Locks of Love, Locks of Love is now a successful charity all around the world.
What does your chosen charity do for the community?
Locks of Love is committed to donating hair to financially disadvantaged kids under the age of 21 who suffer from long term medical hair loss. They meet the unique needs of children and offer the highest hair prosthetic's. Children receive hair prosthetic's free of charge or on a sliding scale based on financial need. Locks of Love receives hair donations from anyone willing to donate 8-10 inches of clean hair to convert into wigs. The charity operates in all 50 states, getting hair from any generous volunteer. Locks of Love makes it easy for people with long term hair loss and the donors to get and give what they need.
With the help of Locks of Love, children are able to live a normal life. The wigs that the charity provides does not interfere with the daily activities of the kids. The wigs can be used in areas such as sports and even swimming. Many of Locks of Love patients suffer from alopecia which can lower self esteem of the kids with this issue. However the wigs that Locks of Love make help build the self esteem of the children as it gives them the confidence to live a normal life. This makes the kids very happy. Happy children makes for happy families and a happy community!
How effective is this charity in accomplishing its goals?
Locks of Love is very effective on getting its goals complete for the community. It gets many submissions of hair from all 50 states everyday of the week. Locks of Love gets so many ponytails sent in that they cant use all of them. LOL receives an estimated 104,000 hair donations per year as of 2013” For “contributions, gifts, and grants, locks of love makes 725,726. Expenses broken down helps prove that Locks of Love is very successful on its goals. And how they make it proves it to.
Locks of Love makes wigs which for “317 natural hairpieces require no more than 3,170 hair donations.”To make a hairpiece, LOL uses “6-10 every hair donation” LOL gets so many hair donations that they cant use all of them. They do only take a specific way of hair but they still use as much as they can to make natural hair pieces. “Only 20% is usable out of their 104,000” But in conclusion, Locks of Love has been very successful in completing it goals.
Closing
Locks of Love is a very successful charity that helps the community get wigs when all of their hair cells are gone because of alopecia areata or chemotherapy. Financial problems too. Either way, LOL is a charity that helps the community. They get submissions from all 50 states, and helps many different stories for children, teenagers and young adults. Locks of love has been around for a while, and it is still doing everything it can to thing day. It helps girls with no hair ave the hair that was lost. Locks of Love is a very effective charity in the community.
Work Cited
Choa, Kent. Forbes.com. Quora, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Esposito, Lisa, ed. "Cancer Makes Your Hair Fall out." Cancer Information for Teens. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. U.S.A: Peter E Reffner, 2014. Print.
"KidSnips Supporting Locks of Love." Marketwire 2014: 3. SIRS Discoverer. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Levy, Janey. Alopecia Areata. New York, NY: Rosen Group, 2007. Print.
Locks of Love. N.p., 2007. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <www.LocksofLove.org>.