February 10, 1999

Jora is giving for her 8th birthday

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
     
      For her eighth birthday, Jora Cherry found that it is better to give than receive.
      The second grader at Glenn Loomis Elementary School decided that for her birthday this year would she would give another child a present to remember: the chance to have natural-looking hair.
      Cherry donated 13 inches of her hair to Locks of Love, a non-profit organization that provides hair prosthetics to needy children with long-term medical hair loss, such as alopecia areata (an auto-immune condition). Cherry's mother, Clara, had heard about the organization on a TV show and later looked it up on the Internet. When she told her daughter about their work, Jora jumped at the idea of donating her hair.
      "My Mom told me about this and I decided immediately to do it," said Cherry. "It just seemed right."
      Cherry had very long hair and spent 20-30 minutes with her mother every morning before school combing it and putting it in braids or ponytails. Every night she brushed and rebraided it to keep it from tangling while she slept. Despite years wearing and managing a longer style, she easily decided to cut it for a good cause. She plans to cut her hair again for Locks of Love when it grows out.
      "I like it, I don't remember having my hair this short before," said Jora, who even after losing 13 inches sported a shoulder-length style. "I feel the weight is gone."
      Locks of Love requires a minimum donation of ten inches of clean hair, dried and bundled into a ponytail or braid and mailed to their office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It takes hair donations from at least 12 people to make one complete prosthesis, so Cherry's hair will be combined with hair donated by others and possibly dyed to match the needed hair color.
      Children ages 8-18 are eligible to receive a natural hairpieces from this organization; younger children receive synthetic hairpieces because their bodies are still growing so quickly. A natural hairpiece for a child retails for at least $3,000. Using hair from donors allows Locks of Love to provide them at low-cost or no-cost for their clients and they also maintain them for free. The organization credits children with 50 percent of their hair donations.
      TBA Career Tech Center's Cosmetology School donated their services to the Cherry family and Locks of Love. The first step was to wash and treat Cherry's hair to remove mineral buildup. Then as her anxious parents and brother Jarrett looked on, student stylist student Jennifer Schaub began snipping and saving hair. After removing the length, she then trimmed and styled Cherry's remaining hair. Afterward, her family and the stylists at the school surprised her with a birthday cake.
      "Mom had to swallow hard but I'm proud of her," said Clara Cherry, who works as a Project Coordinator at the Cosmetology School. "She's doing a good thing and now somebody else will be able to have long hair. She's not going to know what to do with all that extra time."