Show you care: give hair

During the fall pep rally, it was announced that the students of Charter Oak had the opportunity of donating hair to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths campaign.

Synclair Gonzalez, senior, went out of her way to bring this campaign to Charter Oak. Synclair first started donating hair at eight years old after the death of her aunt. She noticed how insecure her aunt was from losing her hair after chemotherapy. She donated 21 inches of her hair the first time. Synclair has since donated five times after that; the fifth occurred at the rally.

Synclair offers the opportunity to the entire student body. She has competed in several beauty pageants, and one requirement was to choose a platform issue, something that the participant wants to make better. Given her background she chose to help cancer patients with self-confidence. As she researched the topic, Synclair found a video of a school where the entire student body had donated their hair and wanted to share that experience with everyone.

Synclair has attempted to get administrative support since her sophomore year. This year. she has partnered with Key Club to open the service opportunity to the student body.

Beautiful Lengths was chosen because “Pantene Beautiful Lengths offers free wigs to cancer patients unlike other organizations that charge those who receive the wigs,” said Synclair.

Not only will this help someone in need, but also this may help increase the self-confidence of any person who is suffering from cancer treatment. Commonly, individuals undergoing chemotherapy lose their hair and their self-confidence often falters because of the physical difference.

The Charter Oak donation will take place on Dec. 6 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. If you wish to sign up to donate hair, then visit CObeautifullengths.weebly.com, to sign up and read the requirements to donate. If you are unable to donate, the campaign asks that you help in any way possible, for example, buying bracelets, t-shirts or just donating $8 to the campaign. This is not simply our school trying to improve itself, but attempting to improve the lives of those in our community as well. To follow activities on Instagram search: cobeautifullengths, and the twitter account is CO_lengths.

Requirements for donations:

Please note that to make the most durable, beautiful wigs possible, donated hair must be a minimum of eight inches in length and have no more than a few strands of gray. Hair may be colored with vegetable dyes, rinses or semi-permanent dyes, but cannot have been bleached, permanently colored or chemically treated.

–Xavier Gutierrez